The Obama administration suddenly has a credibility problem, and not just with Congress or the press, but with its own senior-level officials.
The State Department was forced to admit on Wednesday that it altered a press briefing video to hide an exchange in which a spokeswoman seemed to indicate officials lied about when the Iran nuclear talks began.
And late Friday, a report came out that a White House transcript was altered, in another discussion about Iran. That transcript omitted a comment from Josh Earnest in which he said “No, Kevin” when asked if he could categorically state that no one ever lied about the Iran deal.
That report came out just a day after Earnest said that what happened at State could never happen at the White House.
By the end of the week, the State Department was already facing pressure from Congress about who altered the tape, and why. The report about the White House will only lead to more questions when Congress returns next week.
Questions on the mind of lawmakers are likely to include: who is altering these videos and transcripts, and why should we trust anything the administration says at this point?
But it’s not just lawmakers who are angry. Secretary of State John Kerry said that even he wasn’t happy with the answers from his own department.
Kerry said the whole affair was “stupid and clumsy and inappropriate.” And while department spokesmen have indicated they’re in no rush to figure out who ordered the edit, Kerry said he’d like to know.
“I would like to find out exactly what happened and why,” he said.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has already asked Kerry for the names of employees who edited the video, and who directed the edit. On Friday, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., said those involved need to testify before Congress.
The press is also helping Republicans keep the pressure on the State Department. CNN’s Jake Tapper talked about the scandal for several minutes on Thursday, and openly declared that State told several lies to reporters and the public in an effort to hide the truth.
One of these lies was when Victoria Nuland said in 2013 that there were no secret talks between the U.S. and Iran before that time. Then State deleted a discussion with then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki in which she indicated sometimes lies are necessary.
When the missing video was exposed in May, State lied again by saying it was just a “glitch.” Three weeks later, officials finally had to fess up.
In the three days since State admitted the intentional edit, it’s not clear what a congressional investigation could uncover. The department insists the editing technician who was told to change the video doesn’t know who told her, except that it was someone from the department’s Bureau of Public Affairs.
Psaki and another official still at State, Marie Harf, say it wasn’t them. And on Friday, spokesman Mark Toner said officials can’t find any record of who made the call, since phone records are routinely destroyed after 24 hours, and there is no email traffic on the issue.
The State Department has said before it can’t find emails, only to cough up thousands in the face of pressure and a more thorough search. That’s been the story of the last year with private emails sent by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from her private server.
For now, State says there’s nothing else to learn, but that’s likely to make Congress more curious.
“We have hit a dead end in terms of finding out more information,” Toner said Thursday.
