The subpoena, a copy of which was made available to Reuters,
demands that Blumenthal appear before the House committee on June 3
to give a deposition. The subpoena is dated Monday but carries a
notation indicating an unnamed deputy U.S. marshal served it on
Blumenthal's wife on Tuesday.
The copy of the subpoena contains no further details about the
subject matter of the deposition.
"I can confirm Mr. Blumenthal has been called for a deposition by
the committee," Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Republican
Representative Trey Gowdy, the Benghazi committee chairman, said in
response to a Reuters query.
More than two years ago, a set of emails sent by Blumenthal to
Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state were posted
on the Internet by a hacker who called himself Guccifer. Blumenthal
did not work for Clinton when she was secretary of state and sent
those emails as a private individual.
The emails included detailed private intelligence reports on events
in Libya sent to Blumenthal by Tyler Drumheller, a former senior CIA
officer. Some of the emails were sent around the time of the
Benghazi attacks on and discussed information Drumheller's sources
gave him about the attack.
On Tuesday, The New York Times published a handful of emails showing
that Clinton had passed on some of the private intelligence reports
to aides and other State Department personnel.
The messages show that at least one of the private intelligence
reports made its way to a recipient who appears to have been
Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed by
militants during the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks.
The emails, part of a batch of around 300 messages related to Libya
that the State Department turned over to Gowdy's Benghazi committee
earlier this year, show Clinton herself tersely expressing interest
in some of the private intelligence reports and skepticism about
others.
In one email to an aide, Clinton, referring to one of the reports
supplied by Blumenthal, wrote: "This strains credulity. What do you
think?"
People familiar with the set of Clinton emails turned over by the
State Department to Gowdy's committee said that the emails leaked to
The New York Times were not a complete set of messages related to
what Blumenthal sent Clinton.
[to top of second column] |
Blumenthal is a former journalist who served in the Clinton White
House as one of the most loyal defenders of both Hillary Clinton and
her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
During the congressional investigation into Bill Clinton's
relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Blumenthal was
accused by a longtime friend, the late British writer Christopher
Hitchens, of spreading defamatory information about Lewinsky.
Blumenthal denied the allegation.
In response to an email requesting comment, Blumenthal sent Reuters
an article from a liberal blog accusing Gowdy and The New York Times
of producing a "damp squib."
A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House
Benghazi panel, accused committee Republicans of grandstanding.
"There was no need for the Select Committee to send two U.S.
Marshals to the home of Sidney Blumenthal to serve his wife with a
subpoena, especially since the Committee never bothered to contact
him first to ask him whether he would voluntarily come in. These
heavy-handed, aggressive, and unnecessary tactics waste the time of
the U.S. Marshal service," he said via email.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Peter Cooney,
Leslie Adler and Ken Wills)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|