After her January 2009 appointment as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton proposed hiring long-time Clinton friend and confidant Sidney Blumenthal as an advisor, however, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, blocked Blumenthal's appointment at the State Department.[69] Blumenthal was subsequently hired by the Clinton Foundation and after the 2011 uprising in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi, Blumenthal prepared, from public and other sources, about 25 memos which he sent as emails to Clinton in 2011 and 2012 with advice regarding Libyan matters.

Bryan Pagliano, who worked for the State Department during Clinton's tenure but was also paid separately by the Clinton family to manage the private email server she used while in office, did not appear at the hearing before the House Oversight Committee despite receiving a subpoena to appear late last week.