Watergate Redux? Will Sid 'Vicious' Upend Hillary?

Another shoe, a big one this time, dropped in the endless Benghazi-missing-emails-erased-servers-what-difference-does-it-make controversy that the Clintonistas are trying so hard to push under the rug before it upends Dame Hillary’s presidential campaign.  And the scoop comes, once again, from the New York Times, of all places, not some rascally website run by rightwing lunatics like this one.

Emails have surfaced from long-time Clinton bag man Sid Blumenthal indicating the whole Libya debacle was instigated by a cast of sleazy lowlife profiteers out of an Elmore Leonard novel.  Smarmy Sid was pumping info from this dramatis personae to Hillary (at more than one email address) about goings on in that benighted country and our then secretary of state believed him — at least most of the time — passing his “knowledge” on to her underlings.

And this is a woman who wants to be president?

We know the results of this insider information: Gaddafi gone, four Americans killed in Benghazi, including an ambassador, with Libya a massively failed state overrun by ISIS goons who lop the heads off Christians by the seaside for sport.  Good work, Hillary.  Good work, Sid.

From the Times:

…an examination by The New York Times suggests that Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement was more wide-ranging and more complicated than previously known, embodying the blurry lines between business, politics and philanthropy that have enriched and vexed the Clintons and their inner circle for years.

While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed by her family’s philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation, to help with research, “message guidance” and planning of commemorative events, according to foundation officials. During the same period, he also worked on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge, organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

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. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy.

See what I mean — pure Elmore Leonard. (Too bad he’s dead — but his website lives on.)  Nevertheless we appear to be at tip-of-the-iceberg time.  This is a potential American nightmare and the New York Times finds itself in the middle of it.  (Go figure.) That being the case, however, the Clintons have something to worry about.  The editorial staff will no doubt do their usual best to whitewash things, but a few reporters at least are doing their jobs (in this case Nicholas Confessore and Michael S. Schmidt).  Others may join in.  Will it be another Watergate?  Who knows?  But it would be ironic.  After all, that’s where Hilary got her start.  Will it be where she gets her end?

And now for a little personal disclosure.  I know Sid Blumenthal (a bit).  Back in another life, during the Clinton presidency, some friends thought we had things in common (Blumenthal was trying to write plays and I was a Hollywood screenwriter) and put us together for dinner, one on one, at a Washington restaurant.  I was impressed with Sid — he was obviously a smart guy — but he couldn’t stop talking about Hillary.  I knew he had her ear and that was interesting to me, of course (I was still a liberal then), but there was something obsessive about it.  His whole life appeared to revolve around his relationship to the Clintons.  Later he became their great defender — denying adultery against all evidence — during the Monica crisis.

That’s what often happens to writers when they get close to power.  It bowls them over in a way and they lose objectivity. I have seen that start to happen to me on other occasions and I have to guard against it.  But Blumenthal then and now seems to have eaten the whole proverbial enchilada.  And now he’s going to have to pay for it.  Evidently, he’s going to be subpoenaed by Trey Gowdy to testify on camera.  As many other writers have said before…. to be continued….

MEANWHILE… who obstructs justice better than the State Department?

(Artwork created using multiple Shutterstock.com images.)