Hillary: I Didn't Know The Spymaster on My Payroll Was Providing Me With the Intelligence I Was Paying Him to Get

Okay, I can't really stand by that headline -- yet.

Here is the background.

Tyler Drumheller, former CIA clandestine service head of Europe, was providing intel for a private intelligence service called "The Osprey Group."

He was feeding Sydney Blumenthal intelligence.

Blumenthal passed this intelligence on to Hillary.

Hillary then passed this on to other people, who were not cleared to receive the intelligence.

Crucially, some of this intel was about the actual names of CIA assets in Libya-- information of the highest classification level.

Drumheller had gotten the names -- illegally, as he was not cleared to have the names either -- from unidentified (Democrat leaning, I'm sure) CIA sources.

Then Hillary passed these names on.

If you could prove that Hillary knew she was passing highly classified information, she'd be guilty of knowingly violating the Espionage Act.

That's why, I think, she's making the (to me, ludicrous) claim that she didn't know that Sydney Blumenthal's information was coming from Tyler Drumheller (and his information, in turn, came from current CIA officers). Because she wants to claim she thought this information just came from some friend/journalist, so she's claiming she did not know the actual origination of the information, so she didn't know, I guess, that it was "marked as classified."

So we now have Hillary denying what seems undeniable -- that she knew where Syd Blumenthal's top-secret/SCI classified tips were coming from.

I don't know if she'll get away with this. Obviously, with the Clintons, they always claim they didn't know that crucial thing that would make their actions illegal; their defense is always that they didn't knowingly know what they doingly did.

However, I don't know if that matters, legally, as the Espionage Act punishes those who transmit classified information with gross negligence (not actual knowledge or intent).

But this lie -- and I do assume it's a lie; how could she never have asked who Blumenthal's source was? -- is helpful to her politically.

We'll see if it can stand, or if another email will contradict her and prove her to be lying under oath.

Flashback: This several weeks old Mark Hemingway report on Hillary's Spymaster is a good read. I can't see any direct evidence adduced that Hillary herself was paying Drumheller -- maybe Blumenthal was paying for it, to relay it to Hillary? With Hillary basically using Blumethal as a cut-out, a separation between herself and Drumheller?

posted by Ace at 06:11 PM

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