Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sent an email to her campaign chairman John Podesta in 2014, who was then-counselor to President Barack Obama, that said Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both giving financial and logistical support to the Islamic State and other extremist Sunni groups, according to a recent Wikileaks release.
Clinton sent the email on August 17, 2014 to Podesta. It was an eight-point plan to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Clinton’s email said that the United States should support Kurdish forces on the ground with U.S. military advisers and avoid the use of a conventional ground operation.
“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” Clinton wrote.
The former secretary of state added: “This effort will be enhanced by the stepped up commitment in the [Kurdish Regional Government]. The Qataris and Saudis will be put in a position of balancing policy between their ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world and the consequences of serious U.S. pressure.”
The email from Clinton to Podesta contains a similar format of previous intelligence reports Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal would send to the former secretary of state. The Daily Caller has previously reported how Clinton had asked aides to remove markings showing Blumenthal wrote the reports before sending them to White House officials.
The August 2014 email that pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia and Qatar does not contain any information linking it to Blumenthal in particular and is sent from one of Clinton’s personal emails. The batch of Wikileaks emails has not been independently verified by TheDC. However, Clinton and her spokesman Brian Fallon did not dispute the legitimacy of leaked speech transcripts released by Wikileaks at Sunday’s debate.
TheDC reached out to the Clinton campaign and asked if they dispute the legitimacy of the email, but they have not responded. The Daily Caller also emailed Blumenthal asking if he authored the memo, and he also did not respond.
Qatar has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and Saudi Arabia has donated upwards of $25 million dollars to the Foundation.
The Clinton campaign has not replied to a Daily Caller inquiry about whether the Clinton Foundation will return donations from these two nations that, according to Hillary Clinton, fund ISIS.
In 2010, Clinton’s top aide said that the up to $60 billion weapons transfer of fighter jets and helicopters to Saudi Arabia was a “top priority.” The Clinton campaign did not give comment when The Daily Caller asked if Hillary was elected would she cede military support to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
