Hillary Clinton says there is nothing to hide in her scandalous personal email account, now apparently half-deleted. But leaked emails from her longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal show that he and another former official from Bill Clinton's administration were secretly lobbying the secretary of state on behalf of a billionaire in the former Soviet state of Georgia who was seeking closer ties with Putin's Russia—seemingly in violation of a federal law designed to prevent foreign powers from covertly wielding influence within the United States.

Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal's account.