The Obama administration had many tense exchanges with reporters as it pursued diplomatic talks with Iran on its nuclear program. But it revealed on Wednesday that at least one of those exchanges, from 2013, had been deliberately deleted from the State Department’s public online video archives.
A State Department editor erased a portion of the Dec. 2, 2013 briefing before posting the footage online, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.
The editor did so after receiving a phone call from another employee in the State Department’s public affairs bureau transmitting the request, Mr. Kirby said, adding that the deletion probably happened on the same day as the briefing and he didn’t know who specifically requested the footage be erased. Earlier this month, a different State Department official had attributed the deletion to a “glitch.”
In the tape, which has since been restored, a Fox News reporter asked then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki whether her predecessor had been truthful when responding to questions in 2013 about secret contacts with Iran.
In February 2013, the reporter, James Rosen, had asked previous State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland whether the U.S. was holding secret bilateral talks with Iran outside of the formal channel between Iran and six world powers. She said the U.S. wasn’t.
It was later reported that the U.S. had done just that.
In December 2013, Mr. Rosen asked Ms. Psaki whether Ms. Nuland’s response had been truthful.
Mr. Rosen: “Is it the policy of the State Department, where the preservation or the secrecy of secret negotiations is concerned, to lie in order to achieve that goal?”
Ms. Psaki: “James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
She added a longer explanation about the diplomatic nuance involved.
“Obviously, we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1 negotiations, and we’ve answered questions on it, we’ve confirmed details. We’re happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week ago.”
Mr. Rosen said on a Fox News program earlier this month that he went to go dig up the video from his December 2013 exchange with Ms. Psaki after President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes gave a controversial interview that sparked criticism of how the Obama administration promoted the Iran deal to the public.
However, that section was missing from the video on the State Department’s website and YouTube channel. It was reinserted after questions were raised by reporters.
The full text transcript of the press briefing, including the portion that had been removed from the public video, remained online.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kirby said there were no rules in place governing the handling of video at the time the deletion occurred and that the State Department had adopted policies — effective Wednesday — to make sure that all briefing footage and transcripts are preserved fully. If they need to be edited for reasons such as privacy concerns, he said, the department will require a high-level sign off to do so and that they be properly marked.
“We believe that deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department’s commitment to transparency and public accountable,” Mr. Kirby said.
Reuters reported the inquiry was carried out by the department’s Office of the Legal Adviser at the request of State Department spokesman John Kirby, who is also assistant secretary of the department’s Bureau of Public Affairs.
“In so doing, they learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why it was made,” Kirby told reporters at his daily briefing.
The video editor who received the request by telephone “does not remember anything other than that the caller was passing on a request from someone else in the (Public Affairs) bureau,” Kirby added.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. State Department official said the editor discussed the request with her supervisor and concluded that it came from a “level of credibility and authority” high enough that they should act on the request.
Kirby said the video had been replaced some time ago with a full version that was archived with the Defense Department. He said the transcript of the briefing had always been available online and had not been modified.
Source: WSJ, Reuters Jun 2, 2016