State Department officials will face a criminal investigation for editing a press briefing video in order to omit an embarrassing exchange about the Iran nuclear negotiations, if an outside watchdog group gets its way.
“It is a federal crime to unlawfully remove, destroy, or mutilate a federal record,” Cause of Action assistant vice president Henry Kerner wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Inspector General John Linick in a Monday letter. “The State Department has also revealed that this unnamed staffer did not act alone but that she received a phone call and was told to alter the record.”
Kerner asked both officials to refer the case to the Justice Department for a criminal probe. That puts particular pressure on Kerry, whom House Republicans have requested appear before congressional panel that is investigating the video editing. If Kerry refuses to testify or refer the issue to DOJ, he risks being attacked for covering up the issue.
Reporters were shocked to realize that a segment of a 2013 State Department press conference had been edited to omit a moment when then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki suggested that governments might have to lie in public in order to create the opportunity for diplomatic talks. The editing was discovered after a senior White House staffer admitted they misled the public about the genesis of the Iran nuclear deal.
State Department officials initially denied any malfeasance, but eventually admitted that the editing was intentional. “I would like to find out exactly what happened and why,” Kerry said last week.
But the State Department spokesman said they won’t be able to discover who gave the order to edit the video, because the instruction was delivered by phone rather than email.
“The State Department has stated it would no longer investigate this matter, even with considerable gaps in the information still outstanding,” Kerner wrote. “As the head of the State Department and its Office of Inspector General, respectively, you each have an obligation to refer matters to the attorney general whenever there is a reason to believe that a violation of federal criminal law has occurred.”
