Why Republicans keep bringing up Sidney Blumenthal at the Benghazi hearings
Sidney Blumenthal came up repeatedly during Hillary Clinton's testimony before the House Benghazi Committee today. The reason: emails he sent to Clinton while she was Secretary of State, which were released to the public a few months ago.

While he never served as a formal aide for Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, the release confirmed what's been clear since the first batch of emails: Blumenthal stayed in close contact with Clinton, and she took his advice seriously. Blumenthal was constantly sending advice on everything from European politics to climate change, as well as private intelligence from Libya — including memos related to the attack of September 11, 2012, when Islamist militants killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya , including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

And while Clinton has insisted the missives were "unsolicited," the emails show she regularly sought Blumenthal's counsel. In a reply to a missive from Blumenthal about the 2010 coalition negotiations in the United Kingdom, she wrote, "I shared your emails w Bill who thought they were ‘brilliant’! Keep ‘em coming when you can."

Blumenthal's emails to Clinton described then-House Minority Leader John Boehner as "louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle"; attacked the Tea Party for wanting to "divide the nation" until "it won't look or feel like America"; assailed his former employer, the New Republic, as a "preferred outlet for the highest level Likud/neocon propaganda"; forwarded a piece on the Koch Brothers by the New Yorker's Jane Mayer with the subject line "Yes, there is a vast right wing conspiracy"; sent Clinton a number of articles by his son, the anti-Israel journalist Max Blumenthal; and passed along a memo from his close friend and prominent Clinton ally David Brock describing a plan to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.