44 Facts About Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Stone Blumenthal was born on November 6,1948 and is an American journalist, political operative, and Lincoln scholar.

Sidney Blumenthal is the author of a multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln.

Sidney Blumenthal has written for publications such as The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, for whom he served for a time as the magazine's Washington correspondent, and, was, briefly, the Washington, DC, bureau chief for Salon.

Sidney Blumenthal is a regular contributor to the openDemocracy website and was formerly a regular columnist for The Guardian.

Sidney Blumenthal became involved in politics at the age of 12 as a courier for a local Democratic party election precinct captain.

Sidney Blumenthal earned a BA in Sociology from Brandeis University in 1969.

Sidney Blumenthal was part of a generation of New Left journalists who eschewed objectivity in favor of taking sides.

Sidney Blumenthal blamed journalistic detachment for Ronald Reagan's presidential victory.

In 1983, Sidney Blumenthal became the chief national political correspondent for The New Republic, covering the 1984 Presidential campaign.

Sidney Blumenthal played a major role in Gary Hart's bid for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.

In 1993, Sidney Blumenthal became the chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker before joining the Clinton Administration in the summer of 1997.

Sidney Blumenthal was serving two masters, and I was not comfortable with that.

Over time, Sidney Blumenthal was eased out of his job: "The New Yorker assignments dwindled," Kurtz wrote, and Sidney Blumenthal not long after officially went to work for the Clinton White House.

Sidney Blumenthal served as assistant and senior advisor to Bill Clinton from August 1997 until January 2001.

Sidney Blumenthal's roles included advising the President on communications and public policy as well as serving as a liaison between the White House and former colleagues in the Washington press corps.

Sidney Blumenthal later became a central figure in the grand jury investigation that ended in the impeachment of President Clinton.

Sidney Blumenthal was one of only four witnesses called to testify before the Senate.

Sidney Blumenthal's testimony addressed a major allegation that Clinton had pressured Betty Currie to falsely attest that it was Lewinsky who initially pursued Clinton, not vice versa.

In 1997, Sidney Blumenthal filed a $30 million libel lawsuit against the blogger Matt Drudge, stemming from a false claim Drudge had made of spousal abuse, attributed only to unnamed "top GOP sources".

Sidney Blumenthal dropped his lawsuit and eventually reached a settlement involving a nominal payment to Drudge over Sidney Blumenthal having missed a deposition.

Under subpoena, Hitchens submitted an affidavit to the trial managers of the Republican Party during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, in which Hitchens swore under oath that Sidney Blumenthal had described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker.

Hitchens' allegations directly contradicted Sidney Blumenthal's own sworn deposition during Clinton's impeachment trial that he never said any such thing.

Sidney Blumenthal sends a clear message to his administration colleagues: Mom liked me best.

Sidney Blumenthal came up with the slogan One America, which, he helpfully points out, is 'an updating of E pluribus unum.

Sidney Blumenthal introduced President Clinton to a promising British politician named Tony Blair.

Sidney Blumenthal was a regular columnist for The Guardian from August 2003 until November 2007.

Sidney Blumenthal was a political consultant for the Emmy-award-winning HBO series Tanner '88, written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman; he appeared as himself in one episode.

Sidney Blumenthal was an executive producer of the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by Alex Gibney, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary of 2007.

Sidney Blumenthal was an associage producer of the 2002 film Max.

Sidney Blumenthal joined the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign as a "senior advisor" in November 2007.

The information that Sidney Blumenthal distributed to journalists and political operatives often paralleled conspiracy theories about Obama espoused by conservative activists and conspiracy theorists, often based on scant evidence or unsubstantiated rumors.

Sidney Blumenthal was a full-time employee of the Clinton Foundation from 2009 until 2013 and then served as a consultant for the foundation from 2013 until 2015, earning for him about $10,000 per month, or more than a half-million dollars total.

Sidney Blumenthal gave testimony in a closed-door session the following month.

Sidney Blumenthal's name came up numerous times during the October 22,2015 full committee public questioning of Hillary Clinton regarding the Benghazi incident, as one of the alleged sources of Clinton's intelligence.

Sidney Blumenthal later served as a consultant to the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for America, the pro-Democratic Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century and the pro-Clinton Super PAC Correct the Record, for which he is reportedly paid $200,000 per year, for part-time work.

Sidney Blumenthal passed on the notes to Jonathan Winer at the State Department, who had a previous relationship with Christopher Steele.

In September 2016 Sidney Blumenthal discussed Steele's report with Winer and told him that the information was similar to information he had received from Shearer.

Sidney Blumenthal praised Bill Clinton for his work on the Brady bill and North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sidney Blumenthal gained a reputation for attacking those whom he considered to be enemies of the Clinton administration.

When Sidney Blumenthal was a journalist he would sometimes offer Hillary Clinton political advice and several journalists claimed that offering political advice to Clinton crossed a line as a journalist.

Sidney Blumenthal attempted to dissuade journalists and reporters from writing negative pieces about the Whitewater controversy, Travelgate, and Bill Clinton's personal character.

In 1995, when Sidney Blumenthal was named the chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, the position was one of the most prestigious in American journalism.

Boyer says he mentioned the piece to his colleague after learning that Sidney Blumenthal had lunched with Clinton's friend Harry Thomason on the day the Hollywood producer pushed for the firing of the White House travel office employees.

Boyer says he was later told by Harry Thomason or his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, that Sidney Blumenthal had warned them Boyer was anti-Clinton and planned to smear them, leading to a series of legal threats against the magazine.