Clinton
friend Blumenthal 'shed no light' before Benghazi panel
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[June 17, 2015]
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sidney Blumenthal,
a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton, testified all day Tuesday behind
closed doors before a congressional panel probing the deadly 2012
attacks in Benghazi, Libya, but declared afterwards that he had "shed no
light" on events there.
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Blumenthal, who was an unofficial adviser to Clinton when she was
U.S. Secretary of State, told reporters it seemed obvious the
Republican-majority committee had subpoenaed him "for one reason and
one reason only. And that reason is politics."
"My testimony has shed no light on the events of Benghazi, nor could
it. Because I have no first-hand knowledge of what happened there,"
Blumenthal said after nearly nine hours of testimony in a basement
room in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House committee is looking into memos Blumenthal emailed to
Clinton about Libya around the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi
attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other
Americans.
The panel's chairman, South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, said
that Blumenthal answered questions in a "very civil atmosphere."
But Gowdy denied Democrats' accusations that Republicans are using
the investigation to try and damage Clinton's 2016 presidential
campaign.
"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
relevant time period," Gowdy said.
Blumenthal said the panel had spent hours asking him questions that
had nothing to do with Benghazi. He said many related to politics as
far back as the 2008 presidential primaries, when President Barack
Obama beat Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
Blumenthal's emails to Clinton were among 850 pages of Clinton's
messages related to Libya that the State Department released to the
public last month.
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Some contained information from a former CIA official, Tyler
Drumheller. Blumenthal said on Tuesday that he had sent Clinton
these reports because he thought they might be informative.
He said he had also testified to the Benghazi panel about a
humanitarian assistance idea for medical care that "never got off
the ground," an apparent reference to a proposed business venture in
Libya. He also testified about his educational work with the Clinton
Foundation.
Blumenthal gave nearly 60 new emails to the committee before his
appearance, according to Gowdy, who said they were "eerily similar"
to other emails from Blumenthal released by the State Department but
added the committee "should have gotten this information sooner."
Blumenthal, who once worked as a senior adviser to former President
Bill Clinton, has said he sent the emails to Hillary Clinton as a
private citizen and friend.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and
Ken Wills)
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