Note: This article was originally posted on 3/14/2016 on the Economic Logic Blog, and then moved here today.
All political articles this year will be at this new address.
The EL blog will focus on finance and economics, as usual.
Sidney Blumenthal was a friend and adviser of the Clintons for many years.
Sidney would have been working directly for Hillary in the State Dept. if Obama had not told her not to hire him (because of things he did for Hillary during the 2008 campaign to oppose Obama).
March 2013:
Romanian hacker "Guccifer" (Marcel Lazar Lehel) hacked Sidney Blumenthal's AOL e-mail account.
He leaked four Blumenthal e-mails to Russia Today.
They contained intelligence on Libya that Blumenthal had been sent to Hillary Clinton.
This leak led to the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation.
Sidney sent many “intelligence memos” to Hillary when she was Secretary of State.
The four leaked e-mails were posted on RT.com in Comic Sans font, on a pink background, with the letter “G” clumsily drawn as a watermark.
No one took them seriously in 2013.
Today those four leaked Blumenthal e-mails can be compared with the Hillary Clinton e-mails the State Department has released to the public.
The first three e-mails from the Russia Today website matched the State Department e-mails exactly.
Concerning the first of the three e-mails:
- Hillary had it printed and forwarded the hard copy to her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan.
Concerning the second e-mail:
- Hillary described it as “useful insight”, and forwarded it to Jake Sullivan, asking him to circulate it.
Concerning the third e-mail:
- Hillary forwarded it to Jake Sullivan.
The fourth e-mail is "missing" from State Department records.
This missing e-mail from February 16, 2013 states that French and Libyan intelligence agencies had evidence Benghazi attacks were funded by “Sunni Islamists in Saudi Arabia.”
Romanian hacker Guccifer speaks English as a second language.
His writing tends to be rambling.
It's very unlikely he created a fake 'intelligence briefing' e-mail from Sidney Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton.
If there's an e-mail from a trusted Hillary Clinton adviser claiming the Saudis funded the Benghazi attack, it's surprising no record of this e-mail exists except on the Russia Today website.
It was sent February 16, 2013, after John Kerry took over as Secretary of State, so was not part of the time period being investigated for Hillary.
Two weeks after her job as Secretary of State ends, Hillary receives an e-mail from a friend claiming Saudi Arabia financed the assassination of an American ambassador !
Perhaps the e-mail "disappeared" because Hillary wanted to avoid criticism of Saudi Arabia … because millions of dollars of Saudi donations flow into the Clinton Foundation ?
Romanian hacker "Guccifer" also leaked a screenshot of Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL in-box.
One January 26, 2013 e-mail from the in-box screenshot with the subject: “H: Libya security latest. Sid” is also "missing" -- not included from the e-mails Hillary gave to the State Department from her personal server (she edited those e-mails without any oversight, and then sent printed copies of less than half of them to the State Department).
This missing e-mail is clearly related to Libya and was sent when Clinton was still Secretary of State.
I suppose it's possible the State Department has a copy of that e-mail, but deemed it top secret, even though it was from a private person?
If deemed top secret, that would mean Sidney Blumenthal was sending sensitive information from his AOL account to Secretary Clinton’s private e-mail server.
If the State Department does NOT have a copy of that e-mail, then Clinton and Blumenthal both deleted it before turning over their subpoenaed e-mails to investigators.
That would be destruction of evidence and lying to federal officials.
If Blumenthal regularly sent sensitive information from his AOL account to Clinton’s official government e-mail account, it could have been revealed with a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request.
But sending his e-mails to Hillary's private server avoids FOIA requests.
We already know Hillary Clinton deleted 15 of Sidney Blumenthal’s e-mails to her, which was discovered only after Blumenthal’s e-mails were subpoenaed.
A State Department official claimed none of these 15 e-mails had any information about the Benghazi attack.
But the subject line of the "missing" e-mail includes the word: "Libya".
If this e-mail was just rumors that Blumenthal forwarded unsolicited to Clinton, it would make no sense for it to be "missing".
If it included valuable intelligence, both Blumenthal and Clinton committed a felony by making the e-mail "disappear".
Clinton’s IT staff person who managed her e-mail server, was Bryan Pagliano.
Bryan has been given immunity by a federal judge.
The only logical reason for that would be to get his testimony in front of a grand jury.
Hacker "Guccifer" (Marcel Lazar Lehel) was indicted by the US way back in 2014.
He just had an extradition order to the United States granted by a Romanian court.
"Guccifer" is most likely being extradited now, several years later, also to testify in front of a grand jury.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch was interviewed by Bret Baier on Fox News.
She would not answer any question directly -- it was an unforgettable 'talk and say nothing' TV "performance" that I watched.
I was amazed by how smooth she was evading questions and essentially saying nothing.
She would not answer the question of whether not a grand jury had been convened for Hillary.
If there was no grand jury, then she could have said so, and I think she would have said so to back up what Hillary has been claiming.
If there WAS a grand jury meeting to discuss evidence, Lynch would NOT be allowed to admit it existed.
And that's what happened - Lynch refused to say anything.
Hillary Clinton's campaign is likely to be derailed before the election.
Her claim that she is not being investigated by the FBI are hollow -- a lie that only fools could believe.
The FBI is doing a lot of work on the missing Clinton e-mails, the private server, and most important, whether any donations to the Clinton Foundation, and/or hiring Bill Clinton to make speeches for $250,000 each were actually bribes intended to influence State Department decisions.
The Clintons have been crooked politicians for over 40 years.
I can't imagine the FBI is doing so much investigating ... just to report to the Justice Department they found nothing.
