The State Department said Tuesday that it’s almost ready to explain how and why a government video was altered in a way that cut out a discussion in which a department spokeswoman seemed to admit that the administration sometimes lies to protect national security.
Three weeks ago, spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said a “glitch” caused several minutes of a 2013 press briefing video to disappear. Those missing minutes included a question from a reporter on whether officials ever lie, and a response from then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that,” Psaki replied.
When it was revealed that the video had been edited, the State Department quickly restored the entire video, and said it believes the video was missing because of a “glitch.”
On Tuesday, spokesman John Kirby said the department isn’t quite ready to report on what happened, but he said “we are working on it.”
“I suspect that very soon we’ll be able to let you know what we’ve learned,” he said, adding a report could be made public “potentially this week.”
“I think we’ll have more to say on this a little bit later, so I don’t want to get ahead of that,” Kirby said. “Let me get to the end of the process here. Then we’ll come back and let you know what we’ve learned.”
The question about whether the government lies to protect national security came up in the context of questions about when the Iran nuclear talks started. The Obama administration initially said the talks began in 2013, after the more moderate Hassan Rouhani became president of Iran.
But other signs have emerged that the talks actually started in 2011, which conservatives could use as evidence that President Obama was seeking a deal with Iran well before moderates came to power.
Last week, State said it still thinks the video problem was a “glitch,” and not a purposeful attempt to alter the video.
