Sen. Chuck Grassley pressed the State Department Monday on why an internal investigation into whether an ambassador solicited prostitutes in Belgium was seemingly shut down by Hillary Clinton’s top staff in 2011.
In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Grassley demanded to know why Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, was one of only two officials permitted to interview the Belgian ambassador after he was accused of “routinely ditching his protective security detail in order to solicit prostitutes in a public park in Belgium.”
The other official, Patrick Kennedy, halted the initial investigation two days after it began and kept the probe out of the hands of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the inspector general by downgrading the matter to a “management issue.”
Charges of political interference in investigations conducted by diplomatic security first appeared in an inspector general report published in February 2013, just as Clinton was leaving the State Department.
But earlier, unpublished drafts of that report obtained by the Washington Examiner in June indicated high-level agency officials intervened in more than a half-dozen diplomatic security probes that could have reflected poorly on the State Department.
The State Department inspector general last year confirmed at least three of those investigations were hampered by the perception of “undue influence and favoritism” by top agency officials, including the probe of the Belgian ambassador.
In that case, Kennedy, the undersecretary for management, told the watchdog he had invoked a provision of State Department policy that allowed him to withhold the criminal allegations from investigators if “exceptional circumstances” exist. Kennedy said the exceptional circumstance was “the fact that the ambassador worked overseas,” according to the inspector general.
Kennedy also said he did not allow the criminal investigation to proceed because soliciting a prostitute is not a crime in Belgium.
While the inspector general said last year it could not substantiate the allegations against the Belgian ambassador, who was allowed to return to his post and continue representing the U.S. in Belgium for an additional two years after Mills cleared him, Grassley noted the watchdog might have had enough evidence against the diplomat had the investigation not been shuttered by Clinton’s allies after two days.
The case cited in Grassley’s letter was not the only time Mills was suspected of intervening in a probe. She was accused of stifling a diplomatic security probe into another high-ranking diplomat during her time at the State Department, unpublished inspector general memos said.
Mills allegedly prevented investigators from questioning Brett McGurk, then the ambassador-designate to Iraq, in exchange for McGurk’s cooperation in withdrawing his name from consideration for the position.
McGurk was accused of leaking sensitive information to a Wall Street Journal reporter with whom he was having an extra-marital affair.
Having survived the scandal in 2012 with the help of higher-ups in the State Department, McGurk is presently one of President Obama’s key advisers on the Islamic State and a chief architect of his policy toward Iran.
The inspector general position sat empty during Clinton’s four years at the State Department. Critics have said the vacancy allowed management to wield inappropriate influence over the watchdog.
