Reports: Clinton Boosted Business in Libya for Blumenthal
“there was a clear decision at the time to withhold this information from the American people”
Back in July, we reported that Hillary’s emails revealed a disturbing (but not altogether startling) connection between the former Secretary of State and Sidney Blumenthal. We already knew that Blumenthal was sending Clinton “off the books” intel reports on the situation in Libya, but new emails suggested that he was also offering advice on how to handle the politics of dealing with Iran, China, and Northern Ireland.
Now, new reports show that the advisor and Clinton Foundation payee engaged in communications with the Secretary that both raise ethical questions about business practices, and could have endangered national security.
In a 13-page letter to ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings, Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy previewed new and troubling details about just what sort of information Secretary Clinton was sharing with Blumenthal via her home-brew server.
From the Weekly Standard:
The House Select Committee on Benghazi will be making public next week new documents that demonstrate Sidney Blumenthal was seeking business in Libya as he was advising then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on U.S. policy in the country. According to a letter from Chairman Trey Gowdy to Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, at least once Clinton sought to aid Blumenthal’s business interests in Libya.
The 13-page letter also details new concerns about compromised security on Clinton’s email, noting that in one unsecured email Blumenthal appears to name a top CIA source in Libya –a revelation that could compromise the safety of that source if it became known publicly.
In a statement accompanying the letter, Gowdy makes some of his strongest accusations to date about the Obama administration’s obstruction of the committee’s work.
“These messages should have been made public when the State Department released Secretary Clinton’s other self-selected records on Libya and Benghazi, but there was a clear decision at the time to withhold this information from the American people and the Committee,” reads the letter. “The State Department has now made these messages available, and the Committee intends to question Secretary Clinton about them during her appearance.”
Unethical behavior. Security breaches. That coupled with Blumenthal’s unsettling tendency to bolster his son Max’s anti-semitism should prove troubling for the embattled former Secretary and Presidential candidate.
Will it? Probably not.
You can read Gowdy’s full letter here.
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Comments
From the Weekly Standard:
And Blumenthal testified those e-mails were reall;y written by Tyler Drumheller.
And Drumheller somehow acquired Blumenthal’s user ID and password?
I hope Blumenthal goes with that, Sammy. It will just drive home the point that Hillary was a fool to mix business and personal emails together, and to conduct all her official business on an easily compromised private server.
I don’t actually know exactly what Blumenthal testified to, because all I have is maybe two newspaper stories, but I think what he was saying was that some or all of the detailed analysis in those messages of the situation in Libya was written by Tyler Drumheller, not that Drumheller was actually the person clicking on send.
I see now that Gowdy quotes email from Sidney Blumenthal that refers to Tyler Drumheller in the third person.
We have no idea what Blumenthal testified to. We only know what he said to the media outside of the session, which can be whatever lies he prefers with zero consequences.
Of course now the Democrats plan to leak closed door testimony unless Gowdy a) releases it himself b) closes down the committee.
Trey Goudy also said that, except that Trey Gowdy did not reveal the name Tyler Drumheller. Actually neither did Blumenthal on the record. But it seems to have been leaked by someone.
I am not sure who spoke first. I kind of have the impression that Blumenthal at first refused to say anything or too much.
See:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/blumenthal-didnt-write-any-of-the-libya-intelligence-he-sent-clinton-119081
Also see:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/16/blumenthal-to-break-silence-after-benghazi-deposition/
Here is a Yahoo story:
http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-confidant-testify-house-benghazi-panel-070927663–election.html
In the letter to Elijah Cummings, Gowdy puts it this way: (page 8)
Is this insider trading-level crime?
If she were ANYONE else, she’d be IN JAIL.
Will anything be done? Doubtful………
There are two peculiar things I see in Trey Gowdy’s letter:
First, it refers to Tyler drumheller as though he were still alive. I don’t know what taht means. Is the committee staff not aware of the fact that he died, or are they trying to keep that from the public? It was in all the newspapers.
Secondly, it refers to the policy that the U.S. followed in Libya, and Sidney Blumenthal wanted the U.S. to do more of, as “aggression.”
I don’t think that even Ron Paul, and certainly ot Rand Paul, would use that term, which is completely unjustified.
LOL. Seriously? Using the USAF to bomb Quadaffi and his government out of existence wasn’t “aggressive”?
I said – and the Trey Gowdy letter to Elijah Cummings said – “aggression” not “aggressive”
On page 10, he writes:
Aggression is like Japan did in invading Manchuria. Or the invasion of Poland in 1939.
And what the letter quotes doesn’t really argue that – it argues that the can’t have the revolt lose because they’ll look bad if it does.
What kind of a paleo-conservative (or Russian double agent??) drafted that letter? That’s what Putin is arguing.
think I am going for Russian double agent (on the committee staff) because the letter to Elijah Cummings also speaks of Tyler Drmheller as though he were still alive.
Maybe that’s Democrat actually.
Whatever it is, talking about Drumheller as if he was still alive gets people to puit pressure on the committee to subpoena Tyler Drumheller.
And they can’t summon him from Hell.
Another explanation:
Maybe, the reason taht Drumheller is mentioned as if he were still alive is because some of the text of this letter from Gowdy to Cummings was ut and pasted from some other document.
The key text on page 10:
There’s a footnote there that refers to a letter by Robert Nealon (who’s that?) to the Committee’s chief counsel – at 2 (what’s “2?” Not footnote 2 here because that’s a link to an article The Hill dated April 15, 2015 about Hillary’s endorsements for 2016 – that was cited to back up the assertion that a majority of the Democrats on the Committee have endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.)
Then, in the footnote to this sentence, follows the date of July 24, 2011.
!!?
Cut and paste is maybe the explanation here.
I found the word “aggressive” too in the letter: (top of page 9)
This, first of all seems to attribute the no-fly zone to Blumenthal. There were a lot of other people asdking for somehting like that, and it was Obama anyway that had to make the decision. Second, this letter seems to assume that that policy was wrong.
The polling numbers, Blumenthal argued, were because of Libya. He mentions this in point 1 and point 5 is:
He also made other arguments.
There’s a lot in Trey Gowdy’s letter about how Elijah Cummings public statements are different than his private statements, and how he and the Democrats are acting as defense counsel, and are not interesting in finding out things, and how they (and Hillary Clinton) asked for the release of some emails and then complained about it, and how they are doing selective misleading leaking in a way so as to make the inquiry appear partisan and help Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But never leaking about anything that the people on the ground in Benghazi said.
Only misleading leaks to help Hillary Clinton.
Another interesting thing is that apparently, it was not enough for Cheryl Millls (and that means Hillary) to select the members of the Accountability Review Board (and I would assume talk to them before) but she also had to review and babysit their conclusions. (even though she already selected what they were to look at: only the decision well in advance of Sept 11, 2012 to reduce the level of security, not what happened Sept 11 or what anybody said about it afterwards)
Gowdy writes that Elijah Ciummings compared the APB to an Inspector General, but says that is wrong and this is supposed to be more independent. Lack of independence is not a violation of law. It just renders the whole thing useless and pointless.
Theer is a long quote and commentary from a long message from Blumenthal. and Gowdy finds things to note in it.
Gowdy writes (in diifferent words) that Sidney Blumenthal was emailing Hillary Clinton like crazy about Libya. It seems to have started abruotly in February, 2011. But he only got emails about Libya. Blumenthal could have bene emailing her like crazzy all the time, and merely switched subjects or empphasis in Feb. 2011.
Blumenthal may have had business interests I think, but not the simple narrow ones that Gowdy’s letter points to.
Have you ever considered paying for your own flog over hanging out rent free here?
Not sure what your problem with SF is. Over time, I have come to appreciate his input, here and elsewhere. He tends to be one of the best informed commenters here. I noticed his comments awhile back, when he called me out one time when I took facts to mean more than the should. And, he was right.
One example I can think of is a thread a while back that had 50 comments – 31 were posted by Sammy.
Exactly.
Gowdy wrote that Hillary Clinton seemed to be interested in concealing the involvement of Cody Shearer from Jake Sullivan.
Osprey Global Solutions, a contractor with Clinton ties and lots of business in Libya at the time is likely neck deep in this mess. They were after major contracts as well. Who were the investors in osprey global solutions?
Anybody remember the Valerie Plame scandal? All the tar, feathers and pitchforks over release of a past operative’s name that was a very open secret in DC?
Is it just me, or is carelessness with the name of an actual agent in place something worse that the Plame affair?
No, it’s not you. It’s the corrupt morons hogging the leadership positions of the GOP.
Tyler ADrumheller and the Valerie Plame investigation are not unrelated mattersd.
The Valerie Plame investigation was a successful attempt to get attention away from the forgeries obtained in Italy showing a supposed Iraqi attempt to buy yellowcake from Niger that Drumheller vouched for.
Dick Cheney had doubts about that and wanted the CIA to verify it.
Instead of reviewing the documents, or checking into the story in any other way (they were oobvious forgeries, they even had a wrong perdon in office in Niger, IIRC) they sent Joe Wilson to Noger where he reported – but not to Cheney! -that it would have been impossible for Niger to have actually sent yellowcake to Iraq – which was not the question. Everyone knew it hadn’t happened.
When Judith Miller of the New York Times caused Scooter Libby to inquire as to who had selected Joe Wilson for this trip, the CIA concocted a cover story that his wife, Valerie Plame, had been responsible for selecting him, and then spread this “explanation” throughout higher echelons of the government.
And then when it was printed by Robert Novak, there was this accusation that the leak was in retaliation for Joe Wilson’s article in the New York Times in which he claimed he had rebutted the claim that Iraq had tried to but uraniuam from Niger – whcih he had, in fact, not done.
Meanwhile, the question as to why the CIA accepted the original forgeries and then did not double check them, was completely lost when asked by the Voce President’s office, was completely lost sight of.
The CIA was protecting Drumheller, among other things.
I meant to say:
Meanwhile, the question as to why the CIA accepted the original forgeries and then did not double check them when asked by the Vice President’s office, was completely lost.
I think the CIA was trying to make a case for war that would look good but would ultimately fall apart, maybe in order to prevent Bush from invading some other (corrupt) country (that had paid them off?)
Hillary’s actions are way worse than the Chicago School Superintendent, who is today pleading guilty to multiple corruption charges. And Hillary is way more guilty than Senator Menendez. She should be in prison, not the White House.
Was that thread about the first Republican presidential debate, which I entered into late, but started to comment abouyt everything said – up to a point.
Now there’s this person suing the committee who was probably fired for trying to tilt the investigation too much against Hillary Clinton maybe in an inaccurate way, who now claims he was fired because he was against targeting Hillary Clinton – and also, to give himself a cause of action – that he was fired because he took a leave of absence to do reserve duty – which would be in violation of law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/us/politics/former-benghazi-investigator-says-he-was-fired-unlawfully.html?_r=0