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Sidney Blumenthal Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on October 08, 2015 28 Comments
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:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 15, 2015 4 Comments
Jeremy Corbyn likely will be the next leader of the leftist British Labour Party. Elections are underway for party leadership. The Labour Party has fallen on hard times after being crushed by David Cameron's Conservative Party in the national elections in May 2015. The Conservative Party now holds an outright majority in parliament, but Labour still is the major political opposition in the country. Which is why there is so much concern over Corbyn's connection to so many of worst anti-Semitic and anti-Israel elements. The Jewish Chronicle in Britain gives the big picture view:
The JC rarely claims to speak for anyone other than ourselves. We are just a newspaper. But in this rare instance we are certain that we speak for the vast majority of British Jews in expressing deep foreboding at the prospect of Mr Corbyn’s election as Labour leader. Because, although there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with Jews, there is overwhelming evidence of his association with, support for — and even in one case, alleged funding of — Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites....

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 02, 2015 20 Comments
Remember all the fanfare over Hillary Clinton releasing her emails and claiming that there wasn't any classified information in any of them? Hillary absolutely denied ever sending classified material during her UN press conference:
QUESTION: Were you ever -- were you ever specifically briefed on the security implications of using -- using your own email server and using your personal address to email with the president? CLINTON: I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.
https://youtu.be/uNgsze5yjG0?t=6m0s At the time, Professor Jacobson expressed skepticism about Hillary's claims:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2015 5 Comments
It's not like we didn't see this coming. On May 19, 2015, I wrote that Hillary has a Blumenthal Problem - Two of Them:
I knew that Hillary was going to have a Blumenthal problem for her 2016 campaign. But I expected that the problem would be Max Blumenthal, son of close Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal. 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. The issue with Max was whether Hillary could have Sidney as an advisor given Sidney’s seeming support for Max’s antics, if not his anti-Israel agenda. Buzzfeed reported on the problem back in November 2013, Clinton Adviser Sid Blumenthal’s New Cause: His Son’s Anti-Israel Book....
Max Blumenthal is toxic to any mainstream political candidate. Indeed, he'd be  too toxic even to most left-wing candidates, his anti-Israel venom is so notorious. Max's anti-Israel conspiracy theories were a big hit with the Overland Park shooter. Liberal professor and author Eric Alterman termed Max's book, Goliath, The Israel Haters Handbook. Recently, Max and a friend chased a German lawmaker into a bathroom because the lawmaker called them anti-Semites: [caption id="attachment_106023" align="alignnone" width="560"]http://youtu.be/KQUpUGCfT3s?t=1m18s [Max Blumenthal and David Sheen chase German lawmaker Gregor Gysi into bathroom][/caption]Things just got a whole lot more interesting.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 18, 2015 20 Comments
Sid Blumenthal's testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi created even more questions about former Secretary Clinton's private email usage. Blumenthal provided the committee with 60 new emails; emails the committee says the State Department did not provide. The State Department kicked the can back to Mrs. Clinton saying they didn't turn over the Blumenthal emails because Mrs. Clinton never passed them on to the State Department. This revelation only confirms suspicions that emails relevant to the Benghazi investigation exist, but have not been handed over to either the State Department or the House Select Committee. Fox News reports:

Posted by Jay Caruso on May 28, 2015 9 Comments
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:

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 22, 2015 29 Comments
As Professor Jacobson pointed out yesterday, Hillary's email problems keep getting worse. But what would happen to Hillary if she wasn't a powerful and connected politician? What if she was an average citizen or more importantly, a member of our armed forces? An American soldier named Chad Longell recently made that point at IJ Review:
I Am A Soldier. Here’s What Would Happen If I Used Email Like Hillary Clinton Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal emails are in the news again, and members of the U.S. military and intelligence community sense that there’s a dangerous double standard developing regarding the handling of classified information. I know this because I currently serve. The New York Times revealed Monday that Clinton regularly discussed and circulated emails from close family associate Sidney Blumenthal as a source for Libyan intelligence prior to the Benghazi attacks on September 11, 2012.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 21, 2015 21 Comments
The New York Times has extensive reporting on the first partial batch of Hillary emails released to the public regarding Libya. This is only the first batch, and of course, we don't know what was deleted from her private server. The bottom line is that the relationship with Sidney Blumenthal is as suspicious as suspected, Hillary knew the video story was a crock, and most of all, the entirety so far demonstrates why Hillary sought to hide her activities for so long. First Batch of Hillary Clinton Emails Captures Concerns Over Libya:
The Times obtained about a third of the 850 pages of emails. They appear to back up Mrs. Clinton’s previous assertions that she did not receive classified information at her private email address. But some of the emails contain what the government calls “sensitive” information or “SBU’’ — sensitive but unclassified. This includes details of the whereabouts of State Department officials in Libya when security there was deteriorating during the 2011 revolution. One email from a year and a half before the attacks that was marked sensitive but unclassified contained the whereabouts of Mr. Stevens as he considered leaving Benghazi during the uprising against the Qaddafi regime because of the deteriorating security.
That's of great interest, because foreign hacking of the home server has been a huge concern, and not just from foreign governments. How did al Quada affiliates know where Ambassador Chris Stevens would be? At least on the date of the above email they could have obtained the information from Hillary's emails. Gizmodo, part of the Gawker Media group, has a caustic take on Hillary's security lapses:

Posted by Amy Miller on May 20, 2015 12 Comments
Hillary's "Blumenthal problem" just got a lot bigger. A source close to the House Select Committee on Benghazi told the AP today that the Committee has issued a subpoena to former Hillary Clinton confidant and adviser Sidney Blumenthal. The panel wants answers from Blumenthal about his communications with Clinton during her time as Secretary of State; specifically, if he had any business arrangements with her that led him to communicate with her about Libya. Tensions regarding Clinton's involvement (or, lack thereof, if you believe she ignored the danger) in the disaster at the embassy in Benghazi are compounded by the "delays" Congressional investigators have encountered in their effort to acquire e-mail documentation of Clinton's time as Secretary of State. The two issues are hopelessly commingled, giving democrats an opportunity to accuse Gowdy and other Republicans of purposefully dragging out the investigation.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the panel, issued a statement Wednesday assailing the committee's GOP leadership for its handling of the subpoena.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 19, 2015 23 Comments
I knew that Hillary was going to have a Blumenthal problem for her 2016 campaign. But I expected that the problem would be Max Blumenthal, son of close Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal. 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. The issue with Max was whether Hillary could have Sidney as an advisor given Sidney's seeming support for Max's antics, if not his anti-Israel agenda. Buzzfeed reported on the problem back in November 2013, Clinton Adviser Sid Blumenthal’s New Cause: His Son’s Anti-Israel Book:
A veteran confidant of Hillary Clinton has waded into a bitter argument over the explosive topic of Israel, defending his son’s intensely anti-Israel book from a liberal critic. Sidney Blumenthal, a former New Yorker writer turned Clinton adviser from the White House to the 2008 campaign, has been waging an online campaign against Nation columnist Eric Alterman for negatively reviewing his son Max Blumenthal’s book, Goliath. The book was described by Alterman, himself a frequent critic of Israel, as “awful” and something that “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 10, 2015 3 Comments
On a few occasions we've touched upon the toxic anti-Israel rhetoric from Max Blumenthal, son of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal: In his earlier days, Blumenthal turned his wrath on James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart and others he deemed part of the vast right-wing conspiracy: (language warning) Then he turned on Israel with a viciousness of propaganda rarely seen.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 03, 2015 56 Comments
News broke yesterday, via The NY Times, that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account to conduct government business the entire time she was Secretary of State, which would appear to be a violation of record-keeping rules:
Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.
WaPo further reports that Hillary created a separate domain for her email just before assuming office:
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