NYT’s Schmidt: Blumenthal’s Communication With Hillary ‘More Systematic’ Than Aides Claim

New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt said that Hillary Clinton’s communications with Sidney Blumenthal were “more systematic” than Clinton’s aides claim on Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead.”

Schmidt said, “Well, the argument that people at the top of government say, or, folks, journalists like us would say is, ‘you hear from a lot of different people.’ ‘Hey, I got a tip on this’ ‘Hey, I got something like this.’ The Clinton aides say this was something that was unsolicited, it was just him sending it to her, perhaps he was trying to show his influence what he knew, how he could help her. But it’s more systematic than that, and she was certainly asking her assistants to print them, saying, ‘please print.’ That’s the way that we understand that she was reading them. She forwarded almost all but maybe a few on — and then they would end up, what happened was that Jake Sullivan would take them, copy the text, send them to Chris Stephens in Libya, say, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ Get responses from them, send them back to her.”

Earlier, he stated, “This was not just, like, ‘oh, hey, I heard this at a cocktail party.’ These were detailed things that were based on sources that he said that he had directly addressed, and he would send them to her on a consistent basis. About 25 of these that we know about over a two-year period of time.”

(h/t GOPICYMI)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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