State Dep’t says official censored 2013 briefing footage

During a daily briefing largely dedicated to the controversy, Mark Toner also disputed that the removed portion included words amounting to an admission that the department sometimes lies in the interests of keeping important diplomacy secret.

“He identified four separate lies told by the State Department and, when he got to the end, he spoke for me and all Americans: ‘We have a right to know who lied to us, and why'”.

Under the accord, implemented in March, Iran has submitted its nuclear programme to inspection and surrendered much of its enrichment capacity, in exchange for economic sanctions relief.

Contrary to previous assertions by the State Department, Kirby acknowledged that the exchange was deleted from the briefing video following a phoned-in request.

The State Department had faced questions earlier this year over the block of missing tape from a December 2013 briefing.

When first questioned in early May about the deleted footage – which showed Fox News reporter James Rosen asking then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki whether secret talks had occurred between the U.S. and Iran prior to 2013 – press-office director Elizabeth Trudeau said it was “a glitch” and that no one had intentionally edited the video.

Hours after a State Department spokesman publicly thanked Fox News Channel correspondent James Rosen for his role in uncovering that video of a State Department media briefing had been edited to remove questions Rosen had asked about Iran, a former State Department spokesperson-and current adviser to President Obama-has accused Rosen of “attacking my character”. The State Department this week said she did not know about the secret talks when she denied their existence.

Asked whether the inspector general should investigate what happened, she said she would “let the State Department and their lawyers speak to that”.

Another senior State Department official said the technician found the request “unusual” and consulted her supervisor before making the edit.

Rosen said Thursday he has not attacked Psaki’s character or connected her with the missing video. Mr. Kirby said that a video editor did “excise” the segment. He added that he put rules in place to ensure that similar “inappropriate” actions would not be repeated.

“It remains unclear why the exchange between Ms. Psaki and reporters was stricken from the video recording”.

Once the deletion was noticed by reporters, the deleted portion was reinserted. Kinda like how another video started a “glitch” that was the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate, if you believe the Obama administration’s YouTube tall tales.

The State Department said Wednesday that the staffer who made the deletion from the record did not remember anything about the incident other than the caller was passing on a request from somewhere else in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

“The Obama administration needs to understand that it’s not acceptable just to leave this where it is”, Tapper said on his show, The Lead.