(CNSNews.com) – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged to the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday that of the more than 600 security requests related to Libya and Benghazi that came in in 2012 before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack none ever reached her desk.
However, Blumenthal’s 150 emails reached her desk, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) said.
POMPEO: "Do you know how many security requests there were in the 1st quarter of 2012?"
CLINTON: "For everyone or for Benghazi?"
POMPEO: "I’m sorry, yes ma’am. Related to Benghazi and Libya. Do you know how many there were?"
CLINTON: "No."
POMPEO: "Ma’am, there were just over 100 plus. In the 2nd quarter, do you know how many there were?"
CLINTON: "No, I do not."
POMPEO: "Ma’am there were 172ish – might have been 171 or 173. … How many were there in July and August and then in that week and few days before the attacks? Do you know?"
CLINTON: "There were a number of them. I know that."
POMPEO: "Yes, ma’am – 83 by our count. That’s over 600 requests. You’ve testified this morning that you’ve had none of those reach your desk. Is that correct also?"
CLINTON: "That’s correct."
POMPEO: "Madam Secretary, Mr. Blumenthal wrote you 150 emails. It appears from the materials that we’ve read that all of those reached your desk.
"Can you tell us why security requests from your professionals, the men that you just testified … are incredibly professional, incredibly capable people, trained in the art of keeping us all safe, none of those made it to you, but a man who was a friend of yours, who’d never been to Libya, didn’t know much about it – at least that’s his testimony – didn’t know much about it, every one of those reports that he sent on to you that had to do with situations on the ground in Libya, those made it to your desk?
"You asked for more of them. You read them. You corresponded with him, and yet the folks that worked for you didn’t have the same courtesy."
CLINTON: "Congressman, as you’re aware, he’s a friend of mine. He sent me information he thought might be of interest. Some of it was. Some of it wasn’t. Some of it I forwarded to be followed up on. The professionals and experts who reviewed it found some of it useful, some of it not.
"He had no official position in the government, and he was not at all my adviser on Libya. He was a friend who sent me information that he thought might be helpful."
POMPEO: "Madame Secretary, I have lots of friends. They send me things. I have never had somebody send me a couple of pieces of intelligence with the level of detail that Mr. Blumenthal sent me every week. That’s a special friend."
CLINTON: "It was information that had been shared with him that he forwarded on, and as someone who got the vast majority of information that I acted on from official channels, I read a lot of articles that brought new ideas to my attention, and occasionally, people including him and others would give me ideas. They all went into the same process to be evaluated."
POMPEO: "Yes, ma’am. I will tell you that the record that we’ve received today does not reflect that. It simply doesn’t. We’ve read everything that we could get our hands on. It’s taken us a long time to get it, but I will tell you, you just described all of this other information that you relied upon, and it doesn’t comport with the record that this committee has been able to establish today."