Hillary Clinton Friend Blasts Benghazi Committee After Delivering Nine-Hour Deposition

Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) — Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal told the Select Committee on Benghazi that he did not author or verify any information in memos he passed on to the former Secretary of State but insisted the information came from “a respected former high-ranking CIA official.”

Blumenthal and his counsel declined to confirm the source’s identity, although Politico reports the source who prepared the memos for Blumenthal is Tyler Drumheller, who retired from the CIA in 2005 after 25 years with the agency.

“I testified about sending some reports written by a respected, former high-ranking CIA official I thought might be informative to Secretary Clinton for her to use, or not, as she saw fit,” Blumenthal vehemently told reporters after his deposition concluded.

Blumenthal said his testimony was “mostly old news” and blasted Republicans for subpoenaing him to provide a closed-door deposition, which lasted nearly nine hours.

“I explained the facts and dispelled some myths that were recklessly disseminated before I had the opportunity to answer a single question in the closed deposition and I answered every question,” he said.

Blumenthal said most of his testimony was known two years ago after his personal emails to Clinton – now a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president – were hacked. He added that the committee “spent hours” asking him questions that “had nothing to do with Benghazi” but instead were centered on politics, including the 2008 Democratic primaries.

“My testimony has shed no light on the events at Benghazi — nor could it, because I have no firsthand knowledge of what happened there,” he said. “I never worked in the Obama administration, and was not involved in any of the administration’s decision making.”

“So why was I subpoenaed at all before this committee?”  he wondered aloud. “I am a longtime friend of Hillary Clinton. It seems obvious that my appearance before this committee was for one reason and one reason only, and that reason is politics.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the panel, questioned whether Blumenthal’s source had a financial stake in Libya that could have potentially influenced the information being passed to Clinton.

“I wanted to probe the reliability, the efficacy, the credibility of that information,” Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said. “I’m interested in the reliability of the underlying information that was being presented to our top diplomat, and the reality is, having been in the room all day, [Blumenthal] has absolutely no idea whether the information was credible or not.”

Blumenthal, according to Gowdy, said Clinton knew the supplier of Blumenthal’s information, “but that’s different than knowing the folks on the ground in Libya who are sending you the information.” It’s unclear who Blumenthal’s source was collecting information to pass onto Clinton.

Gowdy said it’s also unclear to the panel whether Blumenthal’s source vetted the information he was gathering. The three-term congressman said is possible that the panel will request Blumenthal’s source to testify in the future.

“One of the folks providing her with the largest volume of information was simply and merely a conduit of someone who it’s still unclear but may very well have had business interests in Libya,” Gowdy said.  

“You can determine for yourself whether someone who has a pecuniary interest in a country would have, how that might impact the efficacy of the information passed on.”  

Gowdy said he is open to releasing a full transcript of the deposition, and he also intends to release the full catalogue of Blumenthal’s emails to Clinton, which were sent to her personal email account.

“I would tend to err on the side of disclosure as opposed to nondisclosure,” he said.

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