And despite ample evidence on the public record for months that Clinton repeatedly asked Blumenthal to keep sending her updates on Libya and other matters, she repeated previous assertions that his advice was unsolicited.

"I did not ask him to send me the information that he sent me," Clinton said.

"You wrote to him, 'Another keeper, thanks' and 'Please keep them coming....Greetings from Kabul and thanks for keeping this stuff coming,'" Gowdy shot back.

Clinton then shifted slightly, conceding that she urged Blumenthal to keep up the flow. "They started out unsolicited and, as I said, some were of interest," she said.

snip

.....You said they were -- you said they were unsolicited," the chairman said.

While Clinton minimized the significance of what Blumenthal sent along, she did not dismiss it entirely, and she defended forwarding the information to aides who sometimes scrambled to respond to the unusual dispatches.

"Some of it I found interesting....

snip

....Allegations relating to Blumenthal's role in that campaign are what kept him from joining the State Department in 2009. Obama aides were convinced that Blumenthal spread false personal and policy rumors about Obama during the battle between Clinton and Obama for the Democratic nomination. While Clinton had more authority to name State Department personnel than any other Obama Cabinet member, Blumenthal was blacklisted--effectively banished by the White House.

When Gowdy asked about Blumenthal's rejection, Clinton didn't dispute it, but said she couldn't remember or didn't know who at the White House put the kibosh on her regular correspondent.

International New York Times May 20, 2015 Wednesday

Clinton friend's memos on Libya draw scrutiny to politics and business

NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Clintons last occupied the White House, Sidney Blumenthal cast himself in varied roles:

speechwriter, in-house intellectual and press corps whisperer. …..Now, as Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her second presidential bid, Mr. Blumenthal's service to the Clintons is again under the spotlight. ……

….. a series of memos that Mr. Blumenthal - who was not an employee of the State Department - wrote to Mrs. Clinton about events unfolding in Libya before and after the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

According to emails obtained by The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, took Mr. Blumenthal's advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal's assessments were often unreliable.

But an examination by The 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.

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 the planning of commemorative events, according to foundation officials. During the same period, he also worked for 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.

The projects …..would have required State Department permits, but foundered before the business partners could seek official approval.

The Libya venture came together in 2011 when David L. Grange, a retired Army general, joined with a new New York firm, Constellations Group, to pursue business leads in Libya. Constellations Group, led by a professional fund-raiser and philanthropist named Bill White, was to provide the leads……