Elections

Hillary’s Press Secretary Discusses Her Mysterious Emails With Sidney Blumenthal

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon downplayed her reliance on Sidney Blumenthal’s intelligence reports, which the 66-year-old Clinton insider frequently sent to her personal email account, in a Tuesday interview with The Daily Caller.

Fallon also responded to new reports about an email Clinton forwarded in March 2011 which allegedly contained the true name of a CIA source in Libya.

“A lot of [Blumenthal’s emails were] not taken at face-value,” Fallon told TheDC prior to Tuesday’s debate at the Wynn Hotel and Casino.

He also said that though Clinton “frequently forwarded” Blumenthal’s emails to relevant staff, she did so “with a degree of skepticism.”

Clinton’s correspondence with Blumenthal was already known, but it received new attention last week when House Select Committee on Benghazi chairman Trey Gowdy released a 13-page letter excerpting some of the pair’s emails.

The 1,500 pages of emails, which were recently provided to the committee by the State Department, show in the greatest detail yet that Blumenthal emailed Clinton to advance the business interests of a defense company called Osprey Global Solutions.

Blumenthal held a stake in the company along with former CIA official Tyler Drumheller and Cody Shearer, another longtime Clinton insider.

The intelligence reports advocated for no-fly zones over Libya during the civil war. They also called for the use of private security forces to depose that country’s dictator, Moammar Gaddafi.

Osprey allegedly hoped to gain contracting work under the country’s new leadership. And to help advance those interests, Blumenthal asked Clinton to endorse the company during her meetings with members of the National Transitional Council, the government that temporarily replaced Gaddafi.

In at least one email excerpted by Gowdy, Clinton showed that she was receptive to Blumenthal’s request that she intervene on his behalf.

In a July 14, 2011 email in which Blumenthal asked for Clinton’s help with a National Transitional Council leader, she responded, “got it…anything else to convey?”

Fallon’s comments aren’t the first time that the campaign has tried to put distance between Clinton and Blumenthal.

In May, Clinton said that Blumenthal’s emails to her were “unsolicited.” That claim was undermined, however, by emails which show that Clinton often encouraged her friend to provide updated intelligence reports.

Fallon also offered comment on an email Gowdy excerpted in last week’s letter in which Clinton forwarded a message from Blumenthal which allegedly contained the name of a CIA source in Libya.

The March 18, 2011 email read: “Tyler spoke to a colleague currently at CIA, who told him the agency had been dependent for intelligence from [redacted due to sources and methods].”

Gowdy asserts that the information, which was provided by Tyler Drumheller, was the name of a CIA source in Libya. He claimed in his letter that Clinton’s forwarding of that source’s name exposed extremely sensitive national security information.

One former CIA official has said that the information contained in the email could have been “lethal” for the CIA asset who was named.

Fallon commented on that particular email, telling TheDC that “when the actual email comes out it may explain itself in a way that is not clear in the way that he selectively excerpted it.”

Asked if he knows what information was redacted in that email, Fallon indicated that he did not. “We don’t have the emails,” he said.

Fallon said that Gowdy’s release of the excerpted emails confirms the campaign’s claims that the Benghazi Committee has political motives.

“I think that that 13-page letter and the excerpting from that email was a prime example of why we think the committee behaves in a partisan way,” Fallon told TheDC.

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