Emails Point To Sidney Blumenthal As Source of The Mohammed Video/Benghazi Story

So far there has been no document or testimony either from the State Department, Defense Department or any witness on the ground blaming the 9/11/12 Benghazi terrorist attack on a lousy Mohammed video on you tube. That is one of the answers the Select Benghazi Committee is trying to find. The answer may have been found. Newly released emails point to Sidney Blumenthal as the source of the fake, Mohammed video/Benghazi excuse.

The State Department released 850 pages of Hillary Clinton Benghazi-related email documents and the NY Times reviewed the ones having to do with Clinton Family buddy Sidney Blumenthal. (all the Blumenthal emails are embedded below) Amongst the treasure trove of emails is this paragraph on a correspondence sent by Blumenthal to Clinton on 9/12/12 the day after the attack:

Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a memo with his intelligence about what had occurred. The memo said the attacks were by “demonstrators” who “were inspired by what many devout Libyan viewed as a sacrilegious internet video on the prophet Mohammed originating in America.” Mrs. Clinton forwarded the memo to Mr. Sullivan, saying “More info.” (Pages 193-195)

Earlier this week The Times established that the Blumenthal emails were sent out to staff at state without telling them who it was from (he was described as HRC friend) and that much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. And Most most of what Blumenthal sent was garbage.

Based on the above it seems that the false story that a lousy Mohammed video caused the Benghazi attack may have started as guano originating with Sid Blumenthal's buddies.

But it gets better because the next day, 9/13 Blumenthal sent another email saying it was a terrorist attack planed a month earlier:

The next day, Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a more thorough account of what had occurred. Citing “sensitive sources” in Libya, the memo provided extensive detail about the episode, saying that the siege had been set off by members of Ansar al-Shariah, the Libyan terrorist group. Those militants had ties to Al Qaeda, had planned the attacks for a month and had used a nearby protest as cover for the siege, the memo said. “We should get this around asap” Mrs. Clinton said in an email to Mr. Sullivan. “Will do,” he responded. That information contradicted the Obama administration’s narrative at the time about what had spawned the attacks. Republicans have said the administration misled the country about the attacks because it did not want to undermine the notion that President Obama, who was up for re-election, was winning the war on terrorism. (Pages 200-203)

Of course "getting around this asap" meant to hang on to the video story even though that meant she had to ignore Blumenthal's second email, the CIA, DIA and the people on the ground who all reported that the Benghazi attack was the result of terrorism.

On October 1st, Blumenthal sent an article to Hillary warning that the Republicans could exploit the attacks in a “Jimmy Carter Strategy” and use them to paint Mr. Obama as weak on terrorism.

Mrs. Clinton forwarded the email to Mr. Sullivan. “Be sure Ben [Rhodes] knows they need to be ready for this line of attack,” And she responded to Blumenthal that she forwarded his memo to the White House.

Mrs. Clinton’s emails show that she had a special type of government information known as “sensitive but unclassified,” or “SBU,” in her account. That information included the whereabouts and travel plans of American officials in Libya as security there deteriorated during the uprising against the leadership of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011. Nearly a year and a half before the attacks in Benghazi, Mr. Stevens, then an American envoy to the rebels, considered leaving Benghazi citing deteriorating security, according to an email to Mrs. Clinton marked “SBU.”

All of those emails were subject to subject to being hacked by foreign government. Is it possible that Ambassador Stevens' location was discovered by the terrorists because a terrorist-friendly government had access to Ms. Clinton's server?

Blumenthal may have been the first person to introduce the fake, Mohammed video story into the explanation of the Benghazi tragedy. Meaning that a guy with no foreign policy experience, who getting information from biased business partners in Libya was allowed to anonymously create a lie shared with the American people. And that lie was grabbed by the Administration anxious to establish that, despite the real facts, President Obama was a strong fighter in the War on Terror.

Emails by Jeffrey Dunetz