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No bombshell in Clinton e-mails

WASHINGTON - Nearly 900 pages of Libya-related e-mails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private account provide little apparent fuel for a Republican investigation of her actions preceding the September 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi and an alleged administration cover-up in its aftermath.

WASHINGTON - Nearly 900 pages of Libya-related e-mails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private account provide little apparent fuel for a Republican investigation of her actions preceding the September 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi and an alleged administration cover-up in its aftermath.

Released Friday by the State Department, the e-mails contain nuggets indicating that Clinton received a fairly steady flow of information about the political chaos inside Libya throughout 2011 and 2012. They also provide glimpses into her personal life - including weekends at home in Washington and New York - and into the grinding and sometimes tedious schedule of a secretary of state.

But the huge time gaps between about 300 e-mails, many of which are repeated on page after page as the same messages are forwarded to and from Clinton and among her staffers, indicated it may not have been her preferred form of communication.

Republicans on the House select committee that has been investigating the Benghazi attacks for the last year seemed to acknowledge the relative lack of new information.

Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), said it was "important to remember these e-mail messages are just one piece of information that cannot be completely evaluated or fully understood without the total record."

The State Department culled the e-mails from a trove of 55,000 pages Clinton turned over from the private account she used throughout her time as secretary. The committee, which received the Libya-related e-mails in February, has asked for the entire collection.

Gowdy's skepticism

"To assume that a self-selected record is complete, when no one with a duty or responsibility to the public had the ability to take part in the selection requires a leap in logic no impartial reviewer should be required to make and strains credibility," Gowdy said in a statement.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), the ranking minority member of the committee who has been harshly critical of Gowdy, charged him with "dragging out this political charade to harm Secretary Clinton's bid for president."

Clinton said she was "glad that the e-mails are starting to come out." Speaking at a news conference in New Hampshire, she said, "I want people to be able to see all of them as soon as possible."

Clinton's presidential campaign has downplayed the significance of the e-mail correspondence and her handling of it. The 55,000 pages she turned over to the State Department were chosen by her staff, which discarded messages they decided were "personal" and unrelated to government business.

She has said she wants to testify in public before the committee, but Gowdy has said her appearance there would be pointless until lawmakers have all the information they need.

One controversy arose immediately after the release, with the last-minute FBI classification Friday of several lines in a Nov. 18, 2012, e-mail from a midlevel State Department official that was forwarded to Clinton. The message recounted a report of arrests in Libya of "several people today who may/may have some connection to the Benghazi attack."

Although the e-mail was simply forwarded to Clinton by an aide and there was no indication of a response, critics seized on the FBI notation as contradicting Clinton's assertion that she never used her personal e-mail for classified information. State Department deputy spokesman Marie Harf said the "e-mail with two sentences redacted was not classified when it was sent in 2012 but it was upgraded today to secret at the request of FBI."

Few of the e-mails deal directly with events leading up to the attacks, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials were killed. Many were forwarded messages sent to her by Jacob Sullivan, her principal foreign policy aide. The last e-mail included from Stevens, sent to Sullivan on July 7, 2012, and forwarded as an "Fyi" to Clinton, reported on election day in Libya. "The atmosphere in Tripoli is very festive," Stevens wrote.

Blumenthal's analysis

About two dozen of the e-mails, sent directly to Clinton, were from former political aide Sidney Blumenthal throughout 2011 and 2012. Each is a lengthy analysis of the internal political situation in Libya, attributed to "sources with direct access to the Libyan National Government, as well as the highest levels of European governments, and Western Intelligence and security services."

Blumenthal, who has been subpoenaed by the committee, worked on Clinton's 2007-08 campaign but was barred from employment by the Obama administration, which considered him untrustworthy. Since then, he has worked for the Clinton family foundation and with entrepreneurs hoping to do business in Libya and Egypt.

The reports include conspiracies recounted by sources inside high-level meetings of the frequently changing Libyan government. One of them talks of Libyan contacts made behind Washington's back by Britain and France - both of whom participated closely with the United States in the 2011 bombing campaign that helped rebels drive Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi from power.