After interviewing more than 30 people in an investigation lasting several months, the State Department announced Thursday it came up empty in the search for the person who requested the editing of a videotaped press briefing that deleted a passage about the Iranian nuclear deal.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the probe concluded that the video of former State spokeswoman Jen Psaki was “deliberately edited” within 18 minutes of the briefing’s conclusion. But other than that, he said, the department has no answers about who requested the edit or why.
“It’s not impossible or inconceivable that there was an attempt to conceal information — in other words, nefarious intent — here. We’re not ruling that out,” Mr. Kirby said. But he added that the edit could have been the result of a “technical problem.”
The portion of the video of a State Department press briefing in December 2013 addressing secret talks between the U.S. and Iran was deliberately deleted before it was posted online. Mr. Kirby said previously that an unknown U.S. official requested over the phone that a technician delete part of the video.
But the technician can’t remember who made the request.
After it was revealed that secret talks between the U.S. and Iran actually had taken place, Ms. Psaki acknowledged the administration lied to hide those negotiations from the public.
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• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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