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Hillary's Clear and Present Danger

Sid Blumenthal is no patriot

May 20, 2015

Hillary Clinton is acting right out of the Jack Ryan playbook when it comes to handling questions about her long friendship with adviser Sidney Blumenthal.

Taking questions for the first time in nearly a month Tuesday, Clinton seemed to be channeling advice the Tom Clancy character gives to the president in Clear and Present Danger. In a scene in the Oval Office, the president fears the press will have a field day with news of his friendship with a man connected to drug cartels.

In Clinton's case, the questions are about Blumenthal's blurred roles in Democratic politics and business and potential influence over her at State.

"Can you explain your relationship as Secretary of State with Sidney Blumenthal?" a reporter asked. "There was a report out this morning that you've exchanged several emails. Should Americans expect that, if elected president, you would have that same type of relationship with these old friends that you've had for so long?"

Clinton laughed.

"I have many, many old friends, and I always think that it's important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics and to understand what's on their minds," she said. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time, he sent me unsolicited emails which I passed on in some instances, and I see that's just part of the give-and-take. When you're in the public eye and when you're in an official position, I think you do have to work to make sure you're not caught in a bubble, and you only hear from a certain, small group of people. I'm going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are."

Compare that to Clear and Present Danger, in which Ryan rejects the advice of a White House adviser to downplay the president's relationship with his friend.

"If a reporter asked if you and [him] were friends, I'd say, ‘No, we're good friends,’" Ryan says. "If they asked if you were good friends, I'd say, ‘No, no, we're lifelong friends.’ I would give them no place to go."

A few scenes later, as Ryan watches on television, the president cheerfully tells a reporter that he and the man in question were "lifelong friends," effectively "diffusing the bomb" as Ryan put it.

The New York Times reported this week that Blumenthal, despite not being an employee of Hillary Clinton's State Department, wrote extensively to Clinton on events in Libya while she was Secretary of State. Emails show she took his advice seriously and passed it along "even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable." During this time, he also advised a business venture seeking contracts from the Libyan transitional government:

But an examination by The Times suggests that Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement was more wide-ranging and more complicated than previously known, embodying the blurry lines between business, politics and philanthropy that have enriched and vexed the Clintons and their inner circle for years.

While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed by her family’s philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation, to help with research, "message guidance" and the planning of commemorative events, according to foundation officials. During the same period, he also worked on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge, organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.