The State Department said Wednesday that it’s still looking into how one of its videos was altered to remove an exchange about when the Iran nuclear agreement started, but said it still believes the key exchange was removed because of a “glitch.”
“We’re still looking into it,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Wednesday. “We continue to take a look at our process at that time, and also making sure that something like that obviously never happens again.”
The “glitch” removed several minutes of discussion in which former spokeswoman Jen Psaki seemed to admit that the government may have purposefully lied about when the Iran nuclear talks started.
“James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that,” Psaki said at one point.
The discovery of the missing video clip came just as questions were being raised again about whether the talks started in 2013, as the Obama administration first said, or in 2011, as many suspect. The issue is important because the government sold the deal in part by saying it was only made possible when moderate Iranian leaders were elected in 2013.
Trudeau said she still believes a glitch was the cause of the problem, but said the government is looking at it again to be sure.
“At this stage, we believe it was a glitch, but we’re double-checking and making sure because we have that commitment.”
But she had no information on when the process would be completed.
“To be honest, I think people are talking about it now,” she said. “As soon as I have an update, I’ll come back to you.”
