Posted on 06/17/2015 1:56:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Hillary Clinton's close adviser Sidney Blumenthal did not personally author or verify any of the memos he sent her about Libya or the Benghazi siege, according to the head of a House panel investigating the 2012 attacks.
"What we learned today is he’s not the author of a single one of those memos. He was passing on information authored by someone else and he has no idea about the credibility or reliability of any of the sources," House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told reporters on Tuesday.
"So, the information passed on to the secretary of State, he didn’t vet and we don’t know if anybody vetted it," he added.
Gowdy's comments came after the panel finished a nearly nine-hour deposition of Blumenthal.
The chairman said the closed-door interview revealed that the information came from a single source, who was also known to Clinton.
However, he declined to identify that person or what their position might have been. Gowdy said the panel "might" call that individual in to testify.
Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA officer, was identified as an author of some of the memos Blumenthal forwarded in reports by Politico and Bloomberg.
Reading from a prepared statement to reporters minutes later, Blumenthal said he “testified about sending some reports written by a respected former high ranking CIA official I thought might be informative to the secretary for her to use or not as she saw fit.”
He declined to answer questions about the person’s identity.
Blumenthal's attorney, James Cole, also did not answer a question about whether Drumheller authored any of the memos.
The new revelations come after Blumenthal last week handed over nearly 60 previously undisclosed emails between himself and Clinton to the congressional panel.
The State Department last month released nearly 300 emails from Clinton’s private server that showed she received about 25 memos from Blumenthal regarding Libya while she was secretary of State.
Gowdy said Tuesday that Blumenthal was “simply and merely a conduit of someone who, it’s still unclear, but very well may have had business interest in Libya.”
The formal federal prosecutor hammered away at the fact that while Clinton may have known the author of the memos, she may not have known how the individual compiled his or her intelligence.
Gowdy said that Clinton should have forward the emails to the Central Intelligence Agency, instead of sending them on to staff or replying with statements that encouraged Blumenthal so send more missives.
“There were several instances where she said, 'keep it coming,' 'good stuff,'" Gowdy said.
For his part, Blumenthal said he also testified about a “humanitarian assistance idea for medial care in which I had little involvement, never got off the ground, and which no money was ever exchanged, no favor sought and which has nothing to do with my sending these emails.”
He said he was also asked about his work with the Clinton Foundation, “which also has nothing whatsoever to do with my emails to my friend."
Blumenthal said the developments were “mostly old news” as his personal email was hacked two years ago.
“My testimony has shed no light on the events at Benghazi nor could it because I have no firsthand knowledge of what happened there,” he told reporters.
Blumenthal said that many of the questions had to do with politics, in some cases dating back as far as the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.
“I am longtime friend of Hillary Clinton. It seems obvious that my appearance before this committee was for one reason, and one reason only, and that reason is politics,” he said.
Blumenthal's remarks capped a long day where panel Democrats repeatedly called on the GOP to make public the latest batch of documents, as well as the transcript of his deposition.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the panel's ranking member said the memos contained "no smoking gun," a characterization Gowdy took umbrage with.
“It’s not a gun case, why would there be a smoking gun?” he said. “I don’t understand that colloquialism. Is that the only reason you talk to somebody is because you’re looking for a smoking knife or a smoking gun?
“Can you just not build a mosaic, build a record to make things as complete as possible?” Gowdy added.
Gowdy said he was “open-minded” about releasing the emails immediately but resisted tying that decision to the transcript, noting the select committee had not done so in previous depositions.
Democrats also repeated their charges that the panel’s investigation is now solely meant to hamstring Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“If this witness weren't close to the Clintons, there's no way he'd be here today. This is all about GOP efforts to try to attack a likely Democratic nominee for president,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), who also serves as ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.
“I fail to see how we’re playing politics by talking to someone who sent a large number of memos to the top diplomat we had during the relative time period,” Gowdy countered.
He said he had “no opinion” on if Tuesday’s proceedings would influence voters’ view of the Democratic frontrunner.
“My interest is in the past, not the future. I’m trying to figure out what happened to four Americans in Benghazi,” Gowdy said.
This story was updated at 9:23 p.m.
That is why Hillary and Sid Blumenthal, her fawning New Left Machiavelli, call their own political philosophy the politics of "The Third Way." This distinguishes it from the "triangulation" strategy Dick Morris used to resurrect Bill Clinton's presidency. Morris guided Clinton, in appropriating specific Republican policies towards a balanced budget and welfare reform as a means of securing his re-election. Hillary Clinton was on board for these policies, and in that sense is a triangulator herself. But "triangulation" is too merely tactical and too morally crass to define a serious political philosophy. Above all, it fails to project the sense of promise that intoxicates the imaginations of self-styled "progressives." That is why Hillary and Sid call their politics "The Third Way."
"The Third Way" is a familiar term from the lexicon of the left with a long and dishonorable pedigree in the catastrophes created by messianic socialists in the 20th Century. It is the most ornate panel in the tapestry of deception I described at the beginning of this essay.
In the 1930s, Nazis used "The Third Way" to characterize their own brand of national socialism as a equidistant between the "internationalist" socialism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of the West. Trotskyists used "The Third Way" as a term to distinguish their own Marxism from Stalinism and capitalism. In the 1960s, New Leftists used "The Third Way" to define their politics as an independent socialism between the Soviet gulag and America's democracy.
But as the history of Nazism, Trotskyism and the New Left have shown, there is no "Third Way." There is the capitalist, democratic way based on private property and individual rights—a way that leads to liberty and universal opportunity. And there is the socialist way of group identities, group rights, a relentless expansion of the political state, restricted liberty and diminished opportunity. The Third Way is not a path to the future. It is just the suspension between these two destinations. It is a bad faith attempt on the part of people who are incapable of giving up their socialist schemes to escape the taint of their discredited past.
Is there a practical difference in the modus operandi of Clinton narcissism and Clinton messianism? I think there is, and it is the difference between "triangulation"—a cynical compromise to hang onto power until the next election cycle, and "The Third Way"—a cynical deception to ensure the continuance of Us, until we acquire enough power to transform everyone else. It is the difference between the politics of getting what you can, and the politics of changing the world......"
"On September 6, 2007, Sidney Blumenthal, reporting at Salon.com, supported Drumheller's account: "Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it."
"..After her January 2009 appointment as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton wanted to hire Blumenthal. However, it was reported that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel blocked his selection due to lingering anger among President Barack Obama's aides over Blumenthal's role in promoting negative stories about Obama during the Democratic primary. According to a report in the New York Times, "Emanuel talked with Mrs. Clinton ... and explained that bringing Mr. Blumenthal on board was a no-go. The bad blood among his colleagues was too deep, and the last thing the administration needed, he concluded, was dissension and drama in the ranks. In short, Mr. Blumenthal was out."
Clinton maintained contact with Blumenthal, who was hired by the Clinton Foundation, and, during the rebellion in 2011 in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi hoped, with business associates, to offer services to the rebels and any new government. Blumenthal prepared, from public and other sources, about 25 memos which he sent as emails to Clinton during 2011 and 2012 which she shared through her aide, Jake Sullivan, with senior State Department personnel. In the form of intelligence briefings, the memos sometimes touted his business associates and, at times contained inaccurate information.
According to journalist John Tabin, Blumenthal's "intel was shoddy, with basic errors like mixing up Libyan politicians with similar names. In a particularly sleazy instance, Blumenthal asserted that a businessman named Najib Obeida was among 'the most influential' of the Libyan prime minister's new economic advisers — without mentioning that Blumenthal was advising a group of contractors courting Obeida as a potential business partner."
The House Select Committee on Benghazi, headed by Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) served a subpoena on Blumenthal on May 19, 2015 for a deposition to be held on June 3, according to Reuters...."
‘keep it coming,’ ‘good stuff,’”
He was also involved in the Niger flap, Plame gate affair.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1700681/posts
Bush’s CIA Critic [Drumheller] Claim Exposed as Untrue
Newsmax.com ^ | 9/13/06 | Ron Kessler (Washington Wire)
Tyler Drumheller was also paid off with a hefty book deal.
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S
VIENNA,VA 22182
BUSINESSMAN
6/9/2005
$500
Pryor, Mark
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S
VIENNA,VA 22182
5/11/2005
$300
Landrieu, Mary L
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S
VIENNA,VA 22182
BUSINESSMAN
6/9/2005
$500
Pryor, Mark
DRUMHELLER, TYLER S
VIENNA,VA 22182
5/11/2005
$300
Landrieu, Mary L
[via freeper mmeyers]
Sept 2007 - Sidney Blumenthal: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction
As you can see in the thread link I just posted, Tyler Drumheller was also James Risen’s source for a ton of material on the NSA and the bleeding heart torture dirt that sent the left into tizzy fits.
Tyler Drumheller served as the CIA's top spy -- the division chief for the Directorate of Operations (DO) -- in Europe until he retired in 2005. Here, he discusses changes at the CIA during his career and after 9/11; his impressions of Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and his leadership; and Drumheller's attempts to warn about the dubious intelligence provided by an Iraqi defector, code-named Curveball. This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted on Feb. 15, 2006.
Give me a sense of who you are, what you did, what your career with the CIA was all about........"
Drumheller’s also involved with Ray McGovern’s group VIPs from the Niger yellowcake days, so it’s no surprise to see him appear in the Benghazi case [never forget that Libya’s yellowcake came from Niger and Iraqi scientists were working in Libya’s nuclear R&D effort- including Obeidi, the Iraqi scientist in whose garden the centrifuge prototype and documents were found buried after the invasion.]
Another person associated with VIPS is Pat Lang, one of the guys who along with Hillary Clinton’s pal Phil Berg came up with the birth certificate conspiracy during Hillary’s run against Obama in the primaries that was later so useful in making the right look as unhinged as the left.
McGovern and his VIPS group was working with Dan Ellesberg of Pentagon Papers/Vietnam War Surrender monkey fame, on a so-called “Truth-telling Project” that openly stated their intent was to aid and abet leakers in breaking the law, revealing classified information.
It was in Europe right under the nose of Drumheller that al Qaeda and Zarqawi [and Mullah Krekar] set up a terrorist network that was using the same financial network based in Lugano as did the regime of Saddam Hussein. Zarqawi and Saddam’s general al Douri later formed al Qaeda-in-Iraq, which received a flow of recruits from Europe via Milan and Syria - the group that evolved into ISIS.
That financial network in Europe included Syrian Antoin/Tony Rezko’s multi-billionaire Iraqi friend Nadhmi Auchi.
At the time Drumheller was seated over Europe several Iraqi spies were captured by the Germans and oters before the Iraq war [some even before 9/11] trying to work set up attack on US and NATO military bases; at the same time al Qaeda was working on a chemical attack on a US consulate in Italy.
In other words, he must not have been very good at his job, as developed as these networks were.
Speaking of James Risen and the CIA:
Condoleezza Rice says she was stunned CIA mission was leaked
Associated Press ^ | Jan 15, 2015 8:51 PM EST | Matthew Barakat http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3247347/posts
Risen :
NYC Bomber May Have Learned How To Bypass Detection From Leaks To The MSM
Flopping Aces ^ | 05-07-10 | Curt http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2508962/posts
That times square bomber was financed by the Pakistani Taliban, in spite of this admin’s quest to engage in diplomacy with the Taliban.
Hillary’s guys, Phil Berg and Pat Lang were RIGHT about Obama’s gift certificate!!! Probably the ONLY time they have ever told the truth.
No, they weren’t. He was just another fake who used fraud, rather than effort, to get his degree financed.
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