How about this? Does this pass the smell test:
The Clinton Foundation paid Sidney Blumenthal, an unofficial adviser to Hillary Clinton who emailed her reports on the situation in Libya, a monthly salary of about $10,000, according to Politico.
Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton confidant, joined the foundation’s payroll in 2009 and was switched to a similar contract without benefits in 2013. That contracted ended in March of that year.
The foundation hired Blumenthal after former President Clinton requested it, and the move was scrutinized by some foundation employees, according to Politico.
Emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server released last week by the State Department showed that Blumenthal sent about 25 memos to Clinton about Libya, including one that initially blamed the 2012 Benghazi attacks on a “sacrilegious internet video.” A follow-up email attributed it to a terrorist attack.
Clinton regularly forwarded those memos to her aides, sometimes asking for them to be printed. But on at least one occasion, she questioned Blumenthal’s information, emailing aides to say that memo “strains credulity.”
Blumenthal has agreed to testify in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi by June 3.
“From time to time, as a private citizen and friend, I provided Secretary Clinton with material on a variety of topics that I thought she might find interesting or helpful,” Blumenthal said in a statement provided by his attorney after he agreed to the deposition.
If I was really being a conspiracy theorist, I’d venture that after his DUI in November, 2008, he was looking for work, but since he got nuked as a possible employee at the White House because he was IS such an asshole during the campaign that none of the Obama loyalists NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND wanted anything to do with him, Hillary kind of had to find something for him because he knows where the bodies are and is a vicious snake who needs to be handled gently. And so he collected a cool 10k a month from the Clinton Foundation for 25 memos. Nice work if you can get it.
Your move, Hillbots. On a scale of trolling to serious, I’d put this post at about dead center, maybe to a little to the troll side, FYI.
flukebucket
This is why I come here daily…..
kc
Can you tell me why I’m supposed to be upset about this?
raven
@flukebucket: 100 days!
Lavocat
Good thing I’m not allergic to popcorn!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
He sent 25 memos ABOUT LIBYA. Not 25 total. No mention in the story about how many memos he sent in total while working there.
Sniff sniff. What’s that smell? I think it’s the smell of a nothingburger.
John Cole +0
@kc: Using a charitable foundation as a slush fund to pay off political operatives? No idea why you would care.
rp
I agree that the arrangement is a little sleazy, but $10K/month really isn’t that much money. Many consultants, political and otherwise, get paid a hell of a lot more. So this just doesn’t seem like that big a deal.
Belafon
@John Cole +0:
What were they paying him off for? The whereabouts of Hillary when Foster was killed?
Hunter Gathers
Currently searching for my Give A Fuck File.
File Not Found.
Roger Moore
@John Cole +0:
If you hate media sleaze, perhaps you should stop repeating it verbatim. HTH.
ant
just let me know if she puts that grezzy 12 sandwich eatin scumbag Mark Penn back on the payroll.
till then, im jus chillin.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole +0: Any evidence to support that version? Or is this the trolling part?
Belafon
There were somewhat similar Republican scandals which involved creating a job just so that campaign or government money could be sent to the spouse.
How would this benefit the Clintons? The most obvious being that Blumenthal could be writing about them in a glowing way. Has he been writing since the job?
dedc79
Now we know what Sullivan’s been up to since he shut down the Dish – blogging as John Cole
flukebucket
@raven: And it will seem like 1,000
Valdivia
last week I mentioned that I was going to wait and see where this Blumenthal story would go and not judge it from the little bits of gossip making the rounds.
I just do not get why did she do this? He was getting paid personally by Hillary, to report to her, when the White House specifically asked her not to include him in her team, make him part of anything at State?
Really can someone explain it to me?
I am going to vote for her but would like to know why she needed to go behind Obama’s back and hire him, even as a consultant. Aren’t there plenty of other people she could rely on?
Fair Economist
The story is trying to conflate two separate issues. There’s no connection between working for the Clinton Foundation and sending emails to Hillary. The emails are definitely a non-issue. Getting hired by the Clinton Foundation may or may not be an issue for Bill, depending on whether he was doing real work for them. I notice the story says *nothing* about the real issue – whether he actually did work.
I’m also amazed that after ignoring tens of millions in wingnut welfare the media suddenly considers a few hundred thousands in Clinton Foundation salaries a critical issue.
Cervantes
Might have been a bit of favoritism in hiring but $120,000/year as a consultant — which means no benefits and you have to pay self-employment tax — is pretty modest money for people in those circles. And even if she didn’t like one of his memos some of them might have been valuable.
Lear: But this is nothing, fool.
Fool: ‘Tis like the breath of an un-fee’d lawyer, you gave me nothing for it.
MaximusNYC
The Blumenthal thing doesn’t bother me. This does:
Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton’s State Department
coin operated
Jeeze, Cole.
You’re just about as bad as the Republican operatives trying to find something…anything…to stick.
JohnnyHitNRunPraline
So not understanding this blog today.
Myiq2xu
JC has hated the Clintons for a LONG time. Watching him try to make his peace with getting in line and supporting Hillary is hilarious.
Cacti
Mega dittoes, Cole!
MaximusNYC
From the article I linked abve:
Kay
Well, I don’t think it’s great for her. Obviously they’re going to try to tie the foundation to her work because then the foundation becomes relevant to her past and (future) work.
I can tell by the response that they know it’s a vulnerability and they know why it’s a vulnerability:
If they can make “Hillary Clinton” = “The Clinton Foundation” then everything on the Foundation “comes in”, essentially.
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: He was hired by the Foundation at Bill’s request. I don’t see how HRC’s hands are on this at all, except as a recipient of the emails.
coin operated
@MaximusNYC: From your article:
You’re as bad as Cole.
Chris
Judas Priest, he really does have Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
The GOP can just take this season off.
Cacti
Hey Cole, I saw that Politico had a story where Paula Jones was commenting on Hillary’s fitness for office.
Should be right up your alley. ;-)
Valdivia
However nothing burger this is I just do not understand why she would chose to do this, while being at State and knowing she was going to later run for President. Why do stuff that looks sleazy if you know you are running?
Specially knowing the media would be non stop digging into this stuff.
@Omnes Omnibus: I tried to fix that but the comment was closed.
It still looks hinky to me and it still baffles me that she would rely on this guy. But I have no love for him, since the 90s.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because she forwarded them to aides, and weighed in one the credibility of one.
SatanicPanic
I don’t know what you’re trying to do here Cole, but it’s kind of funny
MaximusNYC
@coin operated: Sorry, do you see the piece you quoted as discrediting the article somehow?
flukebucket
@Valdivia:
How can one be a politician and not look and be sleazy at least a portion of the time?
askew
I think the Clinton Foundation stinks to high heaven and is used as a way to give money to their sleazy hanger-ons but I still think there are worse stories out there about CF and the Clintons such as what they are doing in Morocco/Western Sahara and Haiti and the new revelation about Bill Clinton setting up a separate LLC to pass through money so it wouldn’t have to be disclosed while Hillary was at State. The Clintons are sleazy people surrounded by sleazy people. But, apparently Dem voters want Hillary as our nominee anyway.
Arm The Homeless
I see that myiq12xu is getting bored at Hotair. We should take a page from their commenters and ignore it.
But Cole, seriously, get DougJ to bring back BIRDZILLA!, that troll had chops.
Cacti
I’m sticking with my previous prediction that Cole ends up supporting Rand Paul for POTUS.
Valdivia
@Kay:
you are saying what bothers me in a much more articulate and rational way.
They had to know this kind of attack would happen and it seems they just left themselves open to it.
I guess I have gotten used to, expect the no drama approach of Obama.
askew
@flukebucket:
Obama’s managed to not look sleazy because he has actual ethics. Sanders isn’t sleazy. Biden isn’t. This isn’t a problem for all politicians. It’s a problem for the Clintons because they have poor ethical standards and an obsession with money.
FlipYrWhig
@Valdivia:
The opening of the story makes it sound like he was getting paid for something having to do with Libya. But all it actually says is that he was getting paid and that he _also_ sent notes relating to Libya. It doesn’t say what he was being paid _for_. Politico is hoping that you’ll make the mistake you did.
What does the Carter Center pay people to do? What about the Bush family foundations? I’m guessing that paying known associates to do… stuff is pretty routine.
Aargh.
Josie
John, you are assuming that Hillary signed off on every decision made by Bill and/or the Foundation. These were very busy people doing a lot of traveling, fund raising, etc. She may not have known every bit of business done by the Foundation. I know that there were financial decisions made by my late husband that I knew nothing about. Sometimes people don’t share every bit of information with each other, especially if they are living somewhat separate lives.
mai naem mobile
So they tried to.find a position for a long time aide of theirs who had a DUI. $10k/mo. I’m guessing Lanny Davis doesn’t walk out of his door unless hes making $10k/day. There was a story a couple of days ago that Bill Clinton had a Delaware corp set for his speaking fees. That to me sounded like a bigger story.
Joel
Although it’s three times what I’m making, 120K per year is pretty cheap by bullshit consultant standards.
Mary G
I don’t like
Frances Perkins
I do give Blumental credit for his book
The Rise Of The Counter-Establishment Hardcover – August 12, 1986
by Sidney Blumenthal (Author).
It was groundbreaking at the time and is still worth reading
Valdivia
@FlipYrWhig:
yes I saw my mistake and tried to correct it but my comment was closed.
As I said above: the media will be relentless on this and I just don’t get why knowing she was running she still made some of the decisions she made. It’s not sleazy, it just looks like that. It’s still a problem no? Other Foundations might do the same thing but Carter is not running for office, or was at State while the Foundation did its work. That’s the only point.
burnspbesq
Fuck off, John. You know that when push comes to shove, you’re voting for Clinton, so all of this is 151 proof trolling. We’ve all got better things to do with our time than to put up with another 17 months of this shit.
JPL
@Fair Economist: Thank you for mentioning this. I have no idea why he was paid by the Clinton foundation. In fact, I have no idea how many employees the Clinton foundation pays.
There’s a reason I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and that’s cuz I’d suck at it.
John Cole +0
@burnspbesq: Yep, I will be voting for her if she is the nominee. Will even put a sign in my yard and a sticker on the Lezbaru.
Cacti
@Joel:
$120k for a consulting gig at the foundation of a former POTUS is comparative peanuts.
It’s an upper middle class salary.
NonyNony
@Valdivia:
Eh – they’re Clintons. Attacks are going to come. Hillary could have been clean as newfallen snow at this point and the outrage machine would find something stupid to wind up about.
Hell at this point the Clintons can probably get away with far more than they do merely because the right wing has turned up the volume so much that they seem much sleazier than they actually are (this current story, for example, is a nothingburger except for people who donate to the Clinton Foundation who might want to know what that $10K/year was getting the Foundation. That bit is a scandal, but it’s a Bill Clinton scandal. Come back to me when you’ve got a Hillary Clinton scandal and we can talk.)
Belafon
@Valdivia: How does receiving emails about Libya equal a position at the State Department? I send links I think are useful to people all the time.
Kay
@Valdivia:
That was the actual rap on the Clintons from their supporters. They don’t recognize, almost refuse to recognize that it “looks hinky” (as you put it). For me it was like this: “why is everyone always asking questions?!” and then I’d think “because they do so many inexplicable things?” You’re torn a lot :)
gene108
@FlipYrWhig:
Wait? What?
Other Presidents have charitable foundations!!!
My God!
They are all laundering money for foreign governments!!!
We’re doooooooommmmmeeeed!
Botsplainer
I hear that her old emails planning with the personnel in the Travel Office to do in Vince Foster over the cattle futures deal were archived on the Clinton Foundation server, and they got accidentally forwarded to Gohmert’s staff.
Cacti
@NonyNony:
This.
After impeaching Bill on BJ charges against the will of the country, your average fence sitting voter will just have their eyes glaze over when the GOP starts foaming at the mouth about something “scandalous” the Clintons have done.
FlipYrWhig
@Valdivia: I don’t see why putting Sidney Blumenthal on retainer is a particularly good idea for anyone, but I also don’t see why it’s sleazy, and it’s only because of something something Benghazi that it’s even slightly indirectly sleazy in a tendentious scandal-monger-y reading. A Clinton crony sent notes about Libya when Libya was in the news. That’s not a scandal.
Fair Economist
@Valdivia:
OK, Bill (not Hillary) recommended him for a job at the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary read and responded to his emails (sometimes skeptically). So which of these activities were they never supposed to do? Can the Clinton Foundation never hire anybody associated with the Clintons? Must the Clintons ignore all emails from personal friends?
Everything the Clintons are accused of here is 100% absolutely ordinary everybody-does-it stuff. And I mean EVERYBODY. Everybody recommends friends for jobs. Everybody reads email from friends. Now if the Blumenthal job was really a BS job, then there’s an issue (although I’ve never worked for any large organization that didn’t have *somebody* in a BS job).
VFX Lurker
There’s still a committee open on Benghazi? I thought there wasn’t much more to say on that case.
Amir Khalid
Let’s wait a fortnight and see if this thing has any legs. I myself am not inclined to think it does, but of course I’m on the other side of the planet and I could be wrong
Belafon
@Fair Economist: When my wife was trying to get back into the workforce, friends or ours hired her to work in their clinic. Then they found something for her to do.
Now, she’s indespensable.
Capri
@MaximusNYC: Find me a country that the US wouldn’t sell weapons to – North Korea, Iran and who else? It’s not like you need some insider deal to buy weapons, it’s our number 1 export.
kindness
John Cole is beginning to sound like conservative John Cole of yore.
schrodinger's cat
So many Clinton mini-scandals, so little time. I am saving my outrage for the august members of John’s former party.
Frankensteinbeck
@Valdivia:
This is blaming the victim. You might as well ask why Obama keeps being so divisive. The media has made it abundantly plain that there is nothing Hillary Clinton does that they won’t treat as a scandal. It’s impossible to be a regular person, much less a politician, without having an ocean full of stuff that if you squint and turn your head on one side would look kinda scandalous. We learned to ignore the neverending wave of nothingburgers directed at Obama. Do the same with Clinton.
Valdivia
@Kay:
I am where you are. Will vote for her, will be confused most of the time about her choices. My priority as I said on a previous thread is keeping the eye on the other side, even when I don’t have to be crazy about everything she does, she will have my support.
@Fair Economist: @FlipYrWhig: and @nonynony
I get that it is not illegal, that they get a bad rap. All of these things. I just don’t want the campaign to be all about this kind of bs and it seems better choices would prevent some of that. She can get harassed by the media about everything and still be making better choices. I can wish for that and still support her and still think the media are jerks.
kc
@dedc79:
Ooh, that’s cold.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Because they’re trying to show that the Clinton Foundation influenced her work at State.
Obviously they’re trying to show special treatment for donors, a quid pro quo, but this goes along with that general narrative- that the lines were blurry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: This is more or less my take on it as well.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: this.
slag
I dare anyone to deny that the sleezeballs and flaming assholes with which the Clintons associate are more prominent (and apparently more numerous) than those of your average politician.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t for a second relish the idea of going back to the scandalicious Clintonian era. But if Hillary is the nominee, she will be my choice for president.
Sherparick
@Hunter Gathers: Also FIFA gave money to Clinton Foundation.
Are they consider him a loyal friend who pretty much nuked his journalism career defending them in the 1990s and do what they can to help him. This reminds of the patronage Roosevelt provided to his friends and acolytes like Harry Hopkins. And I don’t see it as even a “scandal.” But boy, the media does hate her with a passion.
kc
@Cacti:
Let’s hear from Gennifer Flowers, too!
Kay
@Valdivia:
I just think it’s a perfectly valid inquiry because it’s a conflict question- the Clinton Foaundation takes donations. Did those donations influence Clinton’s work at State?
Valdivia
@Kay:
Mostly I am baffled. We all know the standard when you run for office is not the same as the standard for someone not running for office. Also: if you are a Clinton, the standard is even higher. So knowing all this I would have thought there would have been some trepidation, even if as so many people here are pointing out, expecting any trepidation is unfair. It is unfair. But you are running to be President. The standard will always be unfair.
And with that I am out of the Clinton is corrupt/Clinton can do no wrong wars. I am reserving my concern and thoughts to those on the other side and let the wars continue without me.
WaynersT
At the end of the day the question is –
Do you trust Hillary Clinton enough to be a President?
Or better yet – do you trust her more than the other jackbirds?
Everything else is noise.
schrodinger's cat
Let’s not.
gene108
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Foundation
Lots of stuff in the Wiki about the Clinton Foundation’s lack of transparency, but I just thought I’d throw this out there.
They actually do charitable stuff to try and help people.
It’s not just a slush fund and money laundering operation ;-)
japa21
@Kay: And a perfectly valid question would be, “What would it take for you to believe they didn’t?” So far, to the best of my knowledge, there is no direct evidence they did, so you are, in essence, asking that a negative be proved, some notoriously hard to do.
I am definitely not a Hilbot, will not vote for her in the primary, even if she is the only candidate on the ticket by that time. But I will vote for her in the general.
Tree With Water
“Your move, Hillbots”.
You sound like someone on FOX “news”. As if there is no such thing as substantive criticism leveled by the democratic rank and file at a candidate who supported Bush-Cheney whole hog, and refuses to admit the country was lied to. That she was lied to. Paul Krugman says as much, and people are impressed. Hillary will not, and the same people just don’t care.
The sun didn’t stop in the sky when Krugman (et.al.) stated that rude truth. Is Hillary afraid that it will if she admits as much? Then ask yourself why she won’t.
gene108
@Valdivia:
Why?
Bill Clinton did not have a corrupt Administration. Maybe some of the pardons he made at the end were questionable, but it’s not like pardoning everyone involved with Iran-Contra or Nixon.
Bill cheated on his wife. That’s different than abusing the public trust.
Some of their former business partners were shady, but hell, Obama did business with a now convicted felon, Rezko.
I just do not get why liberals are so apprehensive about the Clintons that they do the work of the right-wingers for them.
raven
clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick
ASV
Does it pass the who gives a shit test?
Calouste
@Cacti: No, Cole only falls for GOP Politicians with good hair, like how he thought Mark Sanford hadn’t really done much wrong, right up until the press conference where Sanford admitted to abandoning his state to go shag his mistress in Uruguay. So Rand Paul is out. Now Rubio or Perry, those are the kind of men with hair that make Cole all weak in the brain.
Belafon
@Kay: Would you have required the Clinton’s to shut down their foundation when Clinton became SoS?
Gin & Tonic
Hey, Cole, you gotta unban BiP, then you’ll hear not just how the FIFA scandal is an anti-Putin conspiracy, it’ll probably loop around to telling you about how FIFA donated to the Clinton Foundation.
schrodinger's cat
@Calouste: Rubio is going to go completely bald in a few years. That combover ain’t fooling no one.
Fair Economist
@Valdivia:
On some of these nothingburger scandals, like the private email server, she could have made optically better choices. But on the Blumenthal business, really, this is just totally ordinary behavior, period. To be “better” the Clintons have to either never recommend friends for jobs or never read emails from friends and that’s just ridiculous.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: the Clinton Foaundation takes donations. Did those donations influence Clinton’s work at State?
Did Hillary lean on Loretta Lynch to investigate FIFA so the 2018 World Cup would be pulled out of Russia? Inquiring minds want to know. FIFA, after all, donated to the Clinton Foundation.
orogeny
I just get a kick out of Cole’s “if it’s bad, and it’s about a Clinton, it must be true” shtick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t understand the scale. My take on this: Bill Clinton would pay somebody twice that to tell him what a great President he was and Obama stole his third term and Democrats are a bunch of ungrateful weenies who are too stupid to appreciate his awesomeness, but somebody in Clinton world should have taken Sid aside and told him his good will was appreciated but he needed to stop trying help Secretary Clinton at State.
jonas
@MaximusNYC: The lede on that story is buried further down. She wasn’t doing a favor for the countries buying, she was doing a favor for the defense contractors that have also given generously to the CF.
jl
I would put somewhat less than ‘troll serious’, more like ‘lukewarm serious troll’.
Now of course if the standard of comparison for HRC is angelic perfection this is OUTRAGEOUS CORRUPTION.
But in real life, compared to what? Much much worse is SOP on the GOP and conservaDem side.
Last I heard, if HRC is running against other humans in the primary and general, not angels.
But then, if the assumption is that HRC is a demonic Clintonite force from Hell, then maybe I am not analyzing it correctly.
Cacti
@Calouste:
Nah, Rubio’s developed some impossible to hide male pattern baldness since entering the Senate.
His combover is probably a deal breaker.
EthylEster
@Arm The Homeless:
Funny, I was just thinking about BIRDZILLA!
My, how this blog has changed over the last decade.
Did DougJ cop to being BIRDZILLA?
Kay
@Belafon:
I don’t know. I think conflicts are a genuine question though. I just don’t think it’s outlandish to ask whether the donor to your foundation got special treatment when you were in government and (perhaps!) in a position to help a donor. Again, I don’t get the sense the Clintons think it’s a genuine issue because she put her name on the foundation prior to running for President, but there’s also the idea that the best defense is a good offense :)
I think a lot of the connections in DC are too cozy, honestly. It bothers me because I think it comes from a bit of an egotistical idea along the lines of “we, unlike ordinary mortals, will never fall victim to bias because we are much more savvy and analytical than that”. It’s a human thing, conflicts of interest, people are fallible and they tell themselves fairy tales about how they have an analytical distance, and no one is immune to that failing.
The thing is, Democrats knew all this. They knew it would come up. They promoted her anyway, so we’ll just all see how it shakes out. As I have said here before I think she has strong support and is very formidable as a candidate. But this stuff? Not good. Not a plus.
Iowa Old Lady
My reaction to Bill was I didn’t want to be married to him, but he was a better president than the Rs who came before and after him or ran against him. I hold HRC to the same standard. Who do I prefer to be in the Oval Office? Beyond that, I don’t care.
Kay
@japa21:
Right, but the only way one would find that out is by looking for and then examining connections between the Foundation and the Secretary of State, and that’s what this is.
Once the connection was there one would examine whether the Foundation influenced the Secretary.
To me that’s just an ordinary inquiry.
If Bill Clinton owned a multi-national corporation and one of his employees was emailing the Secretary of State and she forwarded those to her aides, would that merit a question?
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Fair enough.
guachi
I think it’s sad John has so little respect for himself that he has to troll his own readers with his Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
MaximusNYC
@jonas:
That’s a plausible interpretation. But apparently some folks here consider it NBD.
srv
@guachi: The site brims with people phoning it in.
samiam
In keeping with the usual pattern, almost that time for wr0ng way Cole to try defend fat bastard Christie over his latest trip up because he’s so dreamy and farts rainbows whereas Clinton is yucky and has cooties.
Keep f**king that chicken Cole.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If the sale of arms to the Saudis were a new policy for the US, it might be.
sukabi
@coin operated: when folks start giving a damn about money, deals, etc that flowed directly from public coffers to Halliburton while Cheney was directly benefiting, or the Carlyle Group, GWB benefiting, then I’ll give a shit. Compared to that outright theft, this rates as jaywalking, maybe.
Groucho48
@slag:
You mean compared to the sleazeballs surrounding Walker and Christie? Or the racists surrounding the Pauls? Or all the politicians hanging with the child rapist Duggar? Or, the Koch brothers? Or, corrupt businessman Sheldon Adelman?
Worse associations than all of those?
AxelFoley
@gene108:
Hahaha, not surprised you’d bring Obama into this.
AxelFoley
@srv:
And yet, here you are.