http://hotair.com/archives/2015/03/28/was-hillary-running-a-secret-intel-network/Was Hillary running a secret intel network?
posted at 11:31 am on March 28, 2015 by Ed Morrissey
If the motives to wipe the hard drive on Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server weren’t already crystal clear, a new development last night put it in Ultra HD. Gawker’s Jeff Girth and Sam Biddle uncovered a secret, private intelligence network run by Sidney Blumenthal for Hillary’s benefit, apart from the State Department’s own Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Hackers got e-mails that went through Hillary’s private server between her and Blumenthal, e-mails that show her own private intel group was also warning her that Libya was collapsing in the weeks and months prior to the sacking of the consulate in Benghazi:
Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account.
The emails, which were posted on the internet in 2013, also show that Blumenthal and another close Clinton associate discussed contracting with a retired Army special operations commander to put operatives on the ground near the Libya-Tunisia border while Libya’s civil war raged in 2011.
Blumenthal’s emails to Clinton, which were directed to her private email account, include at least a dozen detailed reports on events on the deteriorating political and security climate in Libya as well as events in other nations. They came to light after a hacker broke into Blumenthal’s account and have taken on new significance in light of the disclosure that she conducted State Department and personal business exclusively over an email server that she controlled and kept secret from State Department officials and which only recently was discovered by congressional investigators.
It also seems that Hillary’s private intelligence operation penetrated other intel groups, including those of allies. On one level, one could be impressed with the organization of such an effort — if it had led to better choices. Instead, the hacked e-mail trail here has Hillary’s own network warning her of a string of terrorist attacks in Benghazi three weeks before the attack on our consulate. By that time, of course, the US facility had already been hit by a bomb attack two months prior to these warnings, yet Hillary and Patrick Kennedy did nothing to boost security or get American personnel out of harms’ way. Why, with these warnings ringing in her ears, did she allow US Ambassador Chris Stevens to come to Benghazi at all?
By the way, the e-mails also speak to the “YouTube video” cover story, and makes it clear that Hillary’s own private network had discounted the claim 48 hours after the attack:
On September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, Blumenthal sent a memo that cited a “sensitive source” saying that the interim Libyan president, Mohammed Yussef el Magariaf, was told by a senior security officer that the assault was inspired by an anti-Muslim video made in the U.S., as well as by allegations by Magariaf’s political opponents that he had CIA ties.
Blumenthal followed up the next day with an email titled “Re: More Magariaf private reax.” It said Libyan security officials believed an Islamist radical group called the Ansa al Sharia brigade had prepared the attack a month in advance and “took advantage of the cover” provided by the demonstrations against the video.
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