Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that whoever called for deleting several minutes of video from a December 2013 press briefing was being “stupid and clumsy and inappropriate.”
Kerry said he intends to find out who was responsible, adding that he didn’t want someone like that working for him, according to The Associated Press.
Kerry made the comments while in Paris for discussions to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Jen Psaki, the White House communications director who was State Department press secretary at the time, on Friday called it “a stunning case of poor judgment.”
“This is a stunning case of poor judgment, whether that was incompetence or lack of experience, or both,” Psaki said during an appearance on CNN’s “Wolf.”
In the deleted portion of the video, Psaki was asked whether her predecessor lied when she said secret bilateral talks with Iran had not yet begun, when later U.S. officials said they were already ongoing at that point.
Psaki did not confirm when the talks started, but said, “I think there are times when diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress.”
State officials have said someone within the agency’s Public Affairs Bureau had told someone else in the bureau to call a video technician to make the edit, but that whoever made the original request is unknown.
Kerry’s criticism comes as Republican calls for investigating the incident are mounting.
On Friday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) called for the State Department’s inspector general to probe the incident.
On Thursday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) requested Kerry to hand over all documents and communications related to the deletion of the video.
Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called for an investigation, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) demanded the State Department identify the official responsible for the deletion.
Source: The Hill, June 3, 2016
