Just when it seemed the scandal-plagued climate of the Obama administration could get no worse, CBS NEWS is reporting the possibility that the State Department tried to cover-up investigations of its own alleged misconduct.
Their report is based on an internal State Department Inspector General memo which allegedly shows that “recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off.” These “recent investigations” include allegations that a State Dept. security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and that various members of Sec. of State Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries.”
Moreover, the memo mentions an investigation into an “underground drug ring” which was allegedly operated near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and was used to supply State Department contractors with drugs.
But as Aurelia Fedenisn, former investigator within the State Department’s office of Inspector General says, there were allegations of “criminal wrongdoing” in other areas, and some of these allegations were never even investigated.
Who stopped, stalled, or kept these various investigations from ever starting to begin with? Retired Senior Agent at the Diplomatic Security Service Mike Pohelitz was involved in investigating one of the cases listed in the Inspector General’s memo, and he says he received orders to halt investigations “through [his] DS channel.” But he’s confident the orders didn’t originate with his DS channel.
Said Pohelitz: “It had to come from someone higher than DS, I’m sure.”
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