Emails showing Democratic operative Sid Blumenthal directing public relations efforts for Hillary Clinton in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attacks were withheld from a select committee investigating the attacks, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Blumenthal sent four posts from the Democratic research outfit Media Matters to Clinton on October 10, 2012, emails show. Blumenthal was on Media Matters’ payroll at the time, Politico reported, receiving about $10,000 a month from the group in addition to similar compensation from the Clinton Foundation.
"Got all this done," Blumenthal wrote in the Oct. 10, 2012, email to Clinton, according to the description of the message. "Complete refutation on Libya smear. Philippe can circulate these links. Sid".
Blumenthal was referring to four posts by Media Matters — a left-leaning, pro-Clinton group — that blasted the Benghazi responses from then-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and other Republicans, which he pasted in the body of the email. Blumenthal, a Clinton ally, is close to the group’s founder David Brock, another Clinton confidant — and has advised the organization, and others like it, on and off over the past few years.
"Philippe" likely refers to Clinton’s top spokesperson, Philippe Reines.
According to a separate Politico story, "the emails were not included in documents originally turned over by the State Department. The Select Committee on Benghazi obtained the emails through subpoena."
Members of the select committee on the Benghazi attacks grilled Blumenthal on Tuesday about his work for State and Media Matters and his role in efforts to spin the administration’s response to the attacks.
In addition to Blumenthal’s role at Media Matters, he was involved with the Brock-founded groups American Bridge and Correct the Record, he worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and then afterward at the $2 billion Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation (which paid Blumenthal about $10,000 a month even as he was on Brock’s payroll). During this time, he also advised a pair of businesses seeking potentially lucrative contracts in Libya, while sharing intelligence on the country with Clinton while she was secretary of state.
Republicans privy to the Benghazi committee’s strategy say it’s important to map out Blumenthal’s many affiliations in order to understand the motivations for the counsel he provided to Clinton, and the degree to which she relied on it. But Democrats argue that Tuesday’s questioning shows that Republicans are conducting a politicized fishing expedition intended to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign and its supporters.