Sidney Blumenthal, an embattled former Clinton aide, made it known to associates that he was collecting information about Libya for the purposes of passing it along to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
An executive manager at the consulting firm that employs Tyler Drumheller, the man whom Blumenthal has claimed was the real author of the intelligence memos he sent to Clinton, said Blumenthal began working with Drumheller to gather information about Libya as early as 2009 and did not hide the fact that he was providing the information to Clinton.
Blumenthal’s collaboration with Drumheller, a former CIA official, and his open acknowledgement that he was doing so for Clinton raises questions about whether Blumenthal was truly sending the secretary “unsolicited emails,” as she has claimed in defense.
Drumheller, who has declined to speak with the press since he was revealed to be the source behind Blumenthal’s memos, worked with a security firm called the Alphom Group while providing information to Blumenthal and, by extension, the secretary.
“Executive management at Alphom Group was aware that Blumenthal was seeking background information on Libya and understood that the purpose of those inquiries was to provide background information to the secretary of state,” the Alphom Group executive, who requested anonymity, told the Washington Examiner.
The executive said Drumheller inquired about Libya often given the executive’s contacts in the country, although he noted he was not aware of how much of that information was passed on in Blumenthal’s memos.
Alphom Group was started in 2005 by a former U.S. intelligence officer.
The Alphom executive noted Blumenthal was not on the company’s payroll, despite his close work with Drumheller, an Alphom associate. Blumenthal was at the time reportedly collecting paychecks from both the Clinton Foundation and Media Matters, a Clinton-aligned Democratic group.
The dozens of informal intelligence reports Blumenthal sent to Clinton are at the center of a high-profile congressional probe into the security failures that led to a 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
But they have also underscored transparency concerns that first surfaced when The New York Times revealed Clinton’s use of a private email and server to shield her communications while serving as the nation’s chief diplomat.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Monday Blumenthal had submitted roughly 60 Libya-related emails to the committee that were not among the batch provided by the State Department earlier this year.
It is unclear whether the State Department or Clinton herself withheld the Blumenthal emails from lawmakers.
The emails published by the State Department in May indicate Clinton relied on Blumenthal to provide much of her information regarding Libya as the crisis in that country unfolded.
The lack of additional sources of Libyan intelligence suggests one of two things: Either the published emails are a fraction of the total record, or Clinton relied heavily — if not totally — on Blumenthal and Drumheller’s reports to inform her operations in Libya.
Drumheller has not returned a request for comment.
Gowdy is not expected to move on the Blumenthal emails until early next week, given Wednesday’s tragedy in Charleston in his home state of South Carolina.
The select committee’s five Democrats sent a letter to Gowdy Wednesday demanding the full transcript of their nearly nine-hour deposition of Blumenthal be released at the same time as the 60 new emails to provide “the benefit of Mr. Blumenthal’s responses to the hundreds of questions and that you and other Select Committee members asked him.”
“It has become impossible to understand your revolving policy on when the Select Committee will release information and when it will not,” the Democrats wrote to Gowdy.
Gowdy has resisted calls to release the transcript by questioning “why this witness should be treated differently than any other witness,” as the committee has not released the details of other interviews it has conducted in the course of its year-long probe.
