In a tense line of exchange during Thursday’s House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that while her longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal had her personal email address and frequently used it, Ambassador Chris Stevens did not have that level of access.
“You got that from Sidney Blumenthal and you say Mr. Blumenthal was a friend of yours and he had your personal email address. You say Chris Stevens was a friend of yours,” Georgia Rep. [crscore]Lynn Westmoreland[/crscore] said to Clinton.
Blumenthal emailed Clinton more than 180 times while she was in office. Many of those exchanges included intelligence reports and analysis provided by Blumenthal, often advancing his business interests in Libya and other nations.
But even though Stevens’ issues were more pressing — Libya was crumbling around him leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate — he had no direct line to Clinton. And Clinton apparently did not extend that to the ambassador.
The State Department’s diplomatic team made more than 600 requests for additional security in Libya, all of which went unanswered. Many of those came from Stevens himself, Westmoreland noted.
“If I had been Mr. Stevens, and I’d had a relationship with you…I would have gotten in touch with you some way. I would have let you know that I was in danger. If the situation had deteriorated to a point, I needed you to do something,” Westmoreland continued.
“Did he have your personal email?” he asked.
“Congressman,” Clinton began, pausing. “I — I do not believe that he had my personal mail.”
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