The New York Times ran an alarming report this week on how Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide from the 1990s and an employee of the Clinton Foundation, may have helped shape U.S. policy in Libya.

Despite being barred by former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel from employment at the State Department when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to hire him in 2009, Blumenthal passed intelligence to Clinton at an email address she had previously maintained she did not use at the time. She evidently took his advice very seriously, routinely forwarding his unvetted memos to senior diplomats. Her aide would anonymize the memos, concealing the fact that Blumenthal — a polarizing figure known in the 1990s for ruthlessly attacking the Clintons’ critics, and accused of attacking Obama during the 2008 campaign — was their source.