Fact: Bill and Hillary Clinton aren’t going to give up information voluntarily.
When the media did its job back in April, the Clinton Foundation was forced to refile multiple tax returns after it was discovered that the Foundation failed to disclose donations from foreign governments. Still, gathering new information about the Foundation remains a monumental undertaking, even for mainstream media outlets.
The latest information to come out is the news that long time political confidant Sid Blumenthal was paid $10,000 per month by the Clinton Foundation while he was offering up unsolicited foreign policy advice to Hillary Clinton on Libya. From Politico:
Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton, earned about $10,000 a month as a full-time employee of the Clinton Foundation while he was providing unsolicited intelligence on Libya to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to multiple sources familiar with the arrangement.Blumenthal was added to the payroll of the Clintons’ global philanthropy in 2009 — not long after advising Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — at the behest of former president Bill Clinton, for whom he had worked in the White House, say the sources.While Blumenthal’s foundation job focused on highlighting the legacy of Clinton’s presidency, some officials at the charity questioned his value and grumbled that his hiring was a favor from the Clintons, according to people familiar with the foundation. They say that, during a 2013 reform push, Blumenthal was moved to a consulting contract that came with a similar pay rate but without benefits — an arrangement that endured until March.
If this was the only money Blumenthal was earning, it may not have been too eye-opening; but Blumenthal was also being paid by two organizations run by David Brock:
A Clinton loyalist who first earned the family’s trust as an aggressive combatant in the political battles of the 1990s, Blumenthal continues to work as a paid consultant to two groups supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign — American Bridge and Media Matters — both of which are run by David Brock, a close ally of both Clinton and Blumenthal.
Whatever they say or print, know that American Bridge and Media Matters are in the bag for Hillary Clinton. Given this information, Hillary’s comments when confronted about taking advice from Blumenthal on Libya are baffling:
“When you’re in the public eye, when you’re in an official position, I think you do have to work to make sure you’re not caught in the bubble and you only hear from a certain small group of people, and I’m going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are.”
Not caught in the bubble? More like wrapped head to toe in bubble wrap. If Hillary would take some questions, we could ask why it seemed she was using a “charity” as a means of running a political operation designed to avoid the scrutiny of the media, Congressional investigators, and Freedom of Information Act requests.
Hillary’s relationship with Sid Blumenthal also extends to his son Max, a left wing anti-Israel agitator. Professor Jacobson wrote last week:
Max, the virulently anti-Israel activist, has been the subject of much controversy because of his penchant for vituperative and outlandish attacks on Israel, not the least of which was his call for Israeli Jews to be indigenized after the end of the Jewish state. See our Max Blumenthal Tag for some background.
It turns out that Max’s relationship with Hillary involved him supplying her with the now-debunked theory that an obscure YouTube video was largely responsible for the attacks on the consulate at Benghazi:
Left-wing writer Max Blumenthal helped inspire Hillary Clinton’s debunked talking point that an obscure YouTube movie called “Innocence of Muslims” was responsible for the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.The son of Clinton’s longtime political adviser and informal Libya consultant, Max Blumenthal pushed his conspiratorial theories onto the secretary of state in the hours after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed.
And how did Hillary obtain this information and begin to push it?
Now we know that Hillary became aware of the video on Sept. 12, the day after the attack, through her political adviser Sidney Blumenthal — Max Blumenthal’s father.
The events unfurled as follows:
“During the afternoon of September 11, 2012 new interim President of Libya Mohammed Yussef el Magariaf spoke in private with senior advisors, including the members of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, to discuss the attacks by demonstrators on U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi,” Blumenthal reported to Clinton in a memo dated Sept. 12 at 12:50 a.m.“During this session, a senior security officer told Magariaf that the attacks on that day were inspired by what many devout Libyans viewed as a sacrilegious internet video on the prophet Mohammed originating in America. The Libyan attacks were also inspired by and linked to an attack on the U.S. mission the same day,” Blumenthal said.At 2:11 p.m. on Sept. 12, Hillary Clinton personally forwarded a link to an article about “Innocence of Muslims” to a colleague. That article was posted on MaxBlumenthal.com, and was written by Sidney Blumenthal’s son Max, who is now the senior writer for the far-left website AlterNet.
Hillary’s relationship with Sid and Max Blumenthal runs a whole lot deeper than just friendship. Sidney was passing along specious intel about Libya to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in defiance of President Obama’s orders that he not be involved with any foreign policy. Max’s conspiracy theory about an Internet video actually becaome administration talking points in the wake of the attacks on Benghazi.
The question is, how much will the media push Hillary Clinton on this? Time will tell.
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