WASHINGTON — As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton had access to the latest information and analysis from the nation’s premier intelligence agencies, from a corps of seasoned diplomats reporting back from every corner of the world, from a range of foreign policy experts in and out of government. And from Sidney Blumenthal.
A former journalist, White House official and longtime confidant of Clinton’s, Blumenthal became a frequent correspondent and tipster during her time in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, passing along news articles, inside information, political gossip, election polls, geopolitical advice and sheer speculation in a steady drumbeat of emails, according to documents released by the State Department.
In addition to memos on Libya that have drawn attention, Blumenthal weighed in freely on events in Britain, Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, China, Greece, Mexico, Italy and even Kyrgyzstan, becoming a sort of unofficial early warning service for the secretary on the far-flung issues that confronted her.
He also served as an informer on domestic politics, keeping her up-to-date on the latest machinations in the White House and the campaign trail, even offering suggestions for midterm election strategy.
Blumenthal, in fact, was so prolific in his messages to “H,” as he addressed her, that he seems to be the person she heard from by email the most outside her department. Of the 4,368 emails and documents, mostly from 2010, that were posted on the State Department website Monday night in response to a court order, a search found that 306 involved messages from Blumenthal to Clinton or vice versa.
Clinton was usually terse and revealed little in reply, but she indicated that she and former President Bill Clinton welcomed his input outside the normal chain of command.
“I shared your emails w Bill who thought they were ‘brilliant’!” she wrote after a series of messages about elections in Britain. “Keep ‘em coming when you can.”
The emails posted on Monday, along with previous batches disclosed by the State Department, shed light on a relationship that has already drawn scrutiny from Republicans in Congress investigating the terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
While not a State Department employee, Blumenthal was being paid by Bill Clinton’s foundation as well as by advocacy organizations that have advanced Hillary Clinton’s political interests.
Blumenthal has been a figure of much interest for years in Clinton circles. He became a trusted adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was first lady and a chief defender of her and her husband against what she once called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
He was viewed suspiciously by other Clinton aides for his conspiratorial bent, nicknamed by some “G.K.,” for grassy knoll. As Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton veteran, blocked an effort to hire Blumenthal at the State Department.
But even if she could not put him on her staff, Clinton clearly valued his input, at least to a degree. She used him at times as a conduit to foreign officials, particularly in Britain, where he has extensive contacts in Labour Party circles and referred to top officials like Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, by their first names.
In some of the emails, he arranged a dinner for Clinton, himself and Shaun Woodward, then Britain’s top official on Northern Ireland. During elections that deposed Brown, Blumenthal reported real-time results from London, even informing Clinton when the prime minister was heading to meet with the queen to step down. “Alas, poor Gordon, Heathcliffe, unloved, unlovable, suffering,” Blumenthal wrote.
Blumenthal made a point of passing along articles and rumors that suggested disarray in the White House of Clinton’s former primary rival. He sent her a poll showing her with a higher approval rating than the president and a column urging Obama to fire Emanuel, which she then forwarded to a top aide with an “fyi.”
He passed along a gossipy piece reporting that Michelle Obama had supposedly told Carla Bruni, the wife of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, that life in the White House was “hell.”
In October 2010, just weeks before the Democratic midterm defeat, Blumenthal sent along a column by political analyst Mark Halperin saying Washington elites of both parties had concluded that “the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.”
Blumenthal added his own verdict. While much of the article was “twaddle,” he said, its central conclusion was “completely accurate in assessment.”