Yesterday, the State Department released 3,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private sever.
The New York Times Michael Schmidt reported that the State Department had to go back and classify about two dozen of Clinton’s emails, despite claims that the former-sectary hadn’t sent any emails that would be considered sensitive.
Multiple news reports coming out of the testimony of longtime Clinton associate Sid Blumenthal provide further insight into Clinton’s poor judgment and bad
leadership as Secretary of State. For example:
Bloomberg‘s Josh Rogin writes that Hillary Clinton forwarded information about Libya that was “based on often … outright erroneous information”: The e-mail adds to the impression that the intelligence reports that Blumenthal was sending to Clinton about the situation inside Libya – and that she was distributing for comment to top State Department officials – were based on often flimsy or outright erroneous information.
Washington Examiner‘s Sarah Westwood on Clinton forwarding ” demonstrably false” Blumenthal memos: The demonstrably false claim sent by Blumenthal underscores the main concern that lawmakers have expressed in regards to his informal intelligence memos: that Clinton may have relied on his unvetted intelligence as fact.
National Review‘s Joel Gehrke uncovers a previously-undisclosed email sent to Clinton from Blumenthal that shows the two were collaborating on “a most delicate matter”: The e-mail, which Blumenthal provided to Benghazi Committee investigators earlier this week, shows him advising Clinton on a most delicate matter: How she should respond to the fall of Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi.
Perhaps most damaging for Clinton, National Review‘s Gehrke notes the new Blumenthal email “makes explicit the degree to which her advisers misjudged the situation on the ground in Libya and the Middle East, and shows that her team wasn’t above making foreign-policy statements with an eye on President Obama’s looming reelection bid – and her own political future.”
With a record like this, no wonder Clinton spent so little time during last weekend’s 5,000 word campaign re-launch speech talking about her time at the State Department. AsThe Hill notes this morning, “even people sympathetic to Clinton expressed some concern that there is no signature achievement” at Foggy Bottom.
It was reported yesterday that Hillary Clinton’s longtime family friend and Clinton Foundation adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, was providing memos to the then-Secretary of State that included analysis and other information about Libya. Blumenthal’s testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi revealed he copied and pasted unverified information before forwarding the memo directly to Clinton.
In a shocking example of mismanagement and poor judgment, Clinton not only received multiple memos from Blumenthal, “who has never been to Libya and is not an expert on the country,” but also forwarded these memos onto top State Department staffers. Clinton’s missteps as the head of the State Department are only worsened when considering the situation on the ground in Libya today, which, as “the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya,” is also part of Clinton’s dismal record at Foggy Bottom. Libya is pulled between two governments and also faces threats from terrorist groups, such as Islamic State.
Blumenthal, who was banned from working in Clinton’s State Department by the Obama administration, said yesterday that he was only forwarding emails to Secretary Clinton as a friend, but Blumenthal was paid $10,000 a month by the Clinton Foundation. For Secretary Clinton to blindly forward around the State Department her crony’s unverified analysis demonstrates horrendous judgment in the stewardship of our nation’s security, and is another example of her poor leadership at Foggy Bottom.
Ahead of his appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi today, Sidney Blumenthal, a friend to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, turned over 60 new emails that were conspicuously missing from the batch provided by Hillary Clinton and the State Department, raising even more questions about Clinton’s private server.
The New York Times reports:
Emails that a longtime confidant to Hillary Rodham Clinton recently handed over to the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, raise new questions about whether the State Department and Mrs. Clinton have complied with a series of requests from the panel. …
It is not clear whether the State Department possesses the emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Blumenthal and did not hand them over. It is also possible that Mrs. Clinton never provided them to the department and deleted them off the server that housed the personal account she used exclusively
when she was secretary of state.
Blumenthal will testify today about emails he sent to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State. In one email to Clinton, Blumenthal blamed the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack on a video, but in a follow-up email called it a terrorist attack. The emails surrounding the Benghazi attack were part of a larger collection of memos Blumenthal sent to Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
Notably, Blumenthal is reported to have “no expertise in Libya,” only having business in the country that “stood to benefit from contracts from the post-Qaddafi government.”
As more speculation surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private server and how seriously she took her correspondence with Blumenthal develops, Clinton’s missteps on Libya continue to pile up.
On America’s Newsroom, Ed Henry outlined several recent struggles facing the Clinton campaign.
In a recent interview with USA Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said “it’s conceivable” that the AFL-CIO won’t endorse a candidate for President in 2016. Ed Henry said about Trumka’s remarks, “It is a shot across the bow…. they’re upset that she just won’t take a firm position on this Pacific trade deal. And the reason is she kind of wants to have it both ways.”
