State Department spokesperson Marie Harf could not say Friday how much credence Hillary Clinton gave to the "unreliable" intelligence provided to her by Sidney Blumenthal during her tenure as Secretary of State.
The AP’s Matt Lee pressed Harf on Clinton’s friendship with Blumenthal. Blumenthal, a long-time Clinton ally, maintained close contact with Clinton despite being expressly shut out of administration positions by the Obama White House.
"Were there any senior officials annoyed by the fact that they kept getting emails that said ‘A friend of HRC said this’?" Lee asked.
"I don’t know, I haven’t heard that, Matt," Harf responded.
Lee followed up by asking how seriously Clinton took Blumenthal’s information on Libya. The New York Times reported Monday that Blumenthal’s information was often sourced from associates with business interests in the region.
"Can you say without a doubt that the information — or alleged information — that Mr. Blumenthal was sending to Secretary Clinton on a regular basis did not get any more weight than intelligence from, say, INR in this building?" Matt asked.
"I can’t speak to that," Harf said. "I wasn’t here."