John Podesta, campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said he pays absolutely no attention to longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, as Blumenthal is apparently “lost in his own web of conspiracies.”
The email is just one of a series of Podesta exchanges leaked to WikiLeaks.
In response to an email from progressive opinion writer Brent Budowsky, Podesta wrote in an email dated Jan. 1, 2016, “Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies, I pay zero attention to what he says.”
Budowsky, in his initial email to Podesta, mentioned he found it somewhat uncomfortable that Clinton spent a lot of time “gossiping” with Blumenthal while she served as secretary of state.
In reference to a past debate on health care, Budowsky stated that “Blumenthal did not have the slightest idea of what he was talking about in his girlie gossip with the secretary of state about this. Why she places such great stock over so much time in these exchanges with Blumenthal is mystifying to me—and frankly troublesome.”
Neither Budowsky, nor Podesta appear big fans of Blumenthal. Elsewhere in the set of leaked emails, Podesta states that Blumenthal lacks any kind of self-respect.
“It always amazes me that people like Sid either completely lack self awareness or self respect. Maybe both. Will you promise to shoot me if I ever end up like that?” Podesta wrote in early 2015 to Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress.
As the correspondence between Podesta and Budowsky alludes to, during her time as secretary of state, Clinton emailed back and forth at length with Blumenthal on various matters, and he essentially ran a private intelligence operation for her outside of government strictures. These conversations have now been unearthed and made public as part of the emails released from Clinton’s private server.
The Obama administration blocked Clinton’s attempt to get Blumenthal hired at the Department of State, so Blumenthal ended up with a padded salary at the Clinton Foundation, instead.
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