Secretary of State John Kerry has ordered the State Department to re-examine how a video of a 2013 press briefing came to be edited to remove a sensitive discussion about the Iran nuclear agreement.
Last week, spokesmen for the department said it hit a “dead end” in its investigation, which failed to determine who ordered the video to be edited. But on Wednesday, spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry insisted that officials try again.
“Given the secretary’s strong interest, given Congress’ strong interest and given the media’s strong interest, we’ve decided to continue to look at that,” he said. Kerry had called the entire episode “stupid” and “clumsy.”
“Basically because the secretary said he wants to dive deeper into this, [State will] look more into what happened, and try to get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.
Toner said that so far, State has only interviewed the one video technician who edited out a portion of the video in which then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki seems to indicate that officials might sometimes lie to the public in order to achieve their goals. He said only phone calls were examined because the technician said she was called by someone in the Bureau of Public Affairs, and asked to make the edit.
While officials said they were out of ideas last week, Toner said State’s Office of the Legal Adviser will look again, this time for possible email evidence. And despite claims of a “dead end” last week, Toner said Wednesday, “there are always other leads you can follow.”
Toner said officials have found no email evidence so far that might point to who was involved. “We’ve pursued other leads and found no other conclusive information,” he said.
But Toner admitted that so far, officials have not tried to figure out if the message may have been conveyed over a private email, like the one Hillary Clinton used when she was secretary of state.
Toner also rejected the idea that some new, outside group should do the investigation, since the Office of the Legal Adviser didn’t think to look for phone evidence until reporters asked about it, and didn’t check emails. State was also criticized for only interviewing one person about the scandal, the technician who voluntarily came forward.
But Toner did indicate that it may not be too hard to figure out the mystery eventually. He said just a handful of people could have been involved in the scheme.
“I don’t want to call them … suspects, but they might have been aware of what was happening or what happened, and it’s probably about four or five people,” he said.
Toner did add, however, that there is still no evidence that Psaki or her deputy, Marie Harf, were involved. Both have denied any involvement.
Toner also said the technician who made the edit does know the gender of the person who called to ask for the edit.
“They do, but I’m not going to get into that right now,” he said.
