Documents obtained from an internal watchdog for the US State Department have revealed the potential coverup of alleged illegal behavior ranging from sexual assaults to an underground drug ring.
According to CBS News, which first reported on the information
obtained from a memo produced by the Diplomatic Security Service
(DSS), that agency has followed leads on a number of cases that
implicate the State Department in potentially damaging and
illegal situations.
Aurelia Fedenisn, a former internal investigator, told CBS News
that DDS agents were often told to go easy with investigations of
high-ranking members of the State Department – a working
environment that only allowed criminal behavior to continue, she
says.
The DSS memo contains information on at least eight examples of
improprieties, like claims that a State Department official in
Beirut, Lebanon had “engaged in
sexual assaults” of foreign nationals employed as embassy
guards. The memo further included information that members of
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail had
“engaged prostitutes while on
official trips in foreign countries,” characterizing the
issue as “endemic.”
It is possible that State Department staff were trying to avoid
unwanted publicity, such as that generated by a prostitution
scandal in Colombia which involved 11 Secret Service agents and
five military servicemen in 2012. That controversy partly
derailed US participation in that year’s Summit of the Americas.
Fedenisn was part of the team that drafted a whistleblower report
detailing another coverup, this one involving a US ambassador
suspected of soliciting prostitutes at a public park. According
to that report the high-ranking official was allowed to return to
his post despite having “ditched” his protective security
detail in order to engage with the sex workers.
The undersecretary of state for management, Patrick Kennedy,
reportedly interviewed that ambassador, who shortly thereafter
returned to his post without being disciplined.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told Foreign Policy
Magazine that Kennedy is "not a
central player in this at all."
“Depending on the facts, an
investigation may result in administrative action or criminal
charges, or it may be concluded without further action,"
added Jen Psaki, a colleague of Ventrell.
The report indicates that State Department agents claim they were
told to stop investigating certain cases, for example that of the
ambassador who had solicited sex workers. CBS News also reports
that two hours after the whistleblower report surfaced,
investigators from the State Department’s Inspector General
showed up at Fedenisn’s residence.
According to a draft of a report prepared for the Inspector
General's office, the "hindering" of investigations into
misconduct "calls into question
the integrity of the investigative process” and
“can result in
counterintelligence vulnerabilities.” That line was later
removed from the final version of the report, Fedenisn says,
after a high-ranking security official told her that "this is going to kill us."