State Department Spokesman John Kirby admitted on Wednesday that the department lied last month about doctoring a video of a December 2013 press briefing that included a discussion of the Obama administration’s diplomacy with Iran.
Contrary to previous assertions by the State Department, Kirby acknowledged that the exchange was deleted from the briefing video following a phoned-in request. Kirby did not identify who had made the request to delete the portion of the briefing in question, and said he saw “little foundation for pressing forward with a formal investigation.” He added that he put rules in place to ensure that similar “inappropriate” actions would not be repeated.
Wow: State Dept admits there was a direct order to cut portion of briefing video about secret talks with Iran. State can't explain more….
— Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) June 1, 2016
On December 2, 2013, Fox News reporter James Rosen asked then-State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki a series of questions about the Obama administration’s diplomatic outreach to Iran. During a portion of the exchange, Rosen asked if the State Department lied about how long the Obama administration had been secretly negotiating with Iran.
“James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress,” Psaki responded. “This is a good example of that. Obviously, we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1 negotiations, and we’ve answered questions on it, we’ve confirmed details. We’re happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week ago.”
The video uploaded to YouTube and the State Department’s website of that day’s press briefing did not include Rosen’s questions about the secret diplomacy. After Rosen noted last month that his questions were missing from the video, with a brief flash of a blank screen appearing where the segment had been, the State Department described the missing exchange as a “glitch.”
Rosen told Fox News last month that he was surprised by the doctoring of the video, but observed that the text of the briefing on the State Department’s website did remain intact.
Rosen was prompted to revisit the exchange following The New York Times Magazine profile of Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, in which Rhodes admitted that he lied about details of the negotiations in order to build legislative support for the deal.
[Photo: C-Span ]