TEL AVIV – In a television interview Monday, the co-chairman of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board investigation into Benghazi conceded his team did not have access to all of Hillary Clinton’s emails on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack.
Ambassador Thomas Pickering was asked by CNN host John Berman whether, in his role authoring the ARB, "you feel like you had access to all the information you wanted from Hillary Clinton's emails when you're were running that committee?"
Pickering replied: "We did not – as far as I know, and I've just rechecked of course – see those emails. I would not say however there was any evidence we had that would have pointed us toward those emails."
Pickering said the "emails we saw, we saw it because we were interviewing individuals connected with the investigation."
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"As you might recall we were enjoined by the act of Congress passed a dozen years before Benghazi that we were not to accept the view that Cabinet heads, department heads by accepting their responsibility as part of their job would be a suitable reason to find they had responsibility under the accountability review board rules."
Berman asked whether, in retrospect, the emails "might have been helpful."
"I don't know," Pickering responded. "We don't know. And I never speculate on unknowns until those emails are released and the issue is cleared up.
"What I would say was that we had no evidence in everything else that we saw, including emails from lots of people who were the people that we felt it was necessary to interview because they were involved in the decision-making."
Pickering said there "was no such evidence related to the secretary of state, which is the reason why we didn't pursue investigations in that direction further."
The ARB was presented by Clinton’s State Department as a complete and thorough accounting of the agency’s role in security at the U.S. special mission in Benghazi as well as its responsibilities in the run-up and following the deadly attack.
Earlier this month, the New York Times broke the story that Clinton used a private server based in her house for most of her correspondence and that she turned over to the State Department only emails deemed relevant by her staff.
The Times further reported it was only last month that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was provided with about 300 Clinton emails related to the attack. Just weeks earlier, at the State Department’s request, Clinton released some 50,000 pages of government-related emails stored on her private account.
Hacked emails: Saudi money financed Benghazi attack
As WND reported earlier this month, an email reportedly sent to Clinton by former Clinton White House staffer Sidney Blumenthal quotes an intelligence source providing information that "wealthy Sunni Islamists in Saudi Arabia" funded the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi.
The leaked emails were published two weeks ago by Russia Today, which says it was forwarded the emails from Blumenthal’s AOL account by the hacker using the alias "Guccifer."
"Guccifer" reportedly hacked Blumenthal’s email in March 2013. Guccifer has since been identified as Marcel Lazar Lehel, a Romanian hacker serving a seven-year sentence for hacking into the accounts of Romanian government officials.
The alleged memos concern information Blumenthal says he gleaned about the Benghazi attack and the January 2013 hostage crisis at a gas complex in Amenas, Algeria.
One purported Blumenthal email from Feb. 16, 2013, addressed to Clinton quoted sources "with direct access to the Libyan National Government, as well as the highest levels of European governments, and Western intelligence and security services."
The email said the information comes from "extremely sensitive sources and should be handled with care."
The email quotes an "individual with sensitive access" stating information provided by French security services indicated the funding for both the Benghazi and Algeria attacks "originated with wealthy Sunni Islamists in Saudi Arabia."
Continued the purported email: "During July and August 2012, these financiers provided funds to AQIM contacts in Southern Europe, who in turn passed the money onto AQIM operatives in Mauritania."
AQIM refers to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
"These funds were eventually provided to Ansar Al Sharia and its allied militias in the Benghazi region" to support the attack, states the email.
Ansar Al Sharia claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack.
The purported Blumenthal email added that the "Saudi" money was utilized to procure ammunition and supplies.
CNN previously reported a link between the Benghazi and Algeria attacks.
In May 2013, CNN quoted one source disclosing several Yemeni men belonging to Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, took part in the Benghazi attacks.
The source revealed counter-terrorism officials learned the identity of the three men and later traced them to northern Mali, where they are believed to have connected with the jihad organization led by Moktar Belmoktar.
Belmoktar, an Algerian, is a senior leader of the Islamic Maghreb. He claimed responsibility for the Algeria gas facility attack in January in which 38 people were killed during a three-day siege.
Another intelligence source told CNN that Belmoktar had received a call in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack from someone in or close to the city.
The person on the other end of the call declared, "Mabruk, Mabruk!" meaning "congratulations" in Arabic, according to the source.
With additional research by Joshua Klein.
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