June 10, 2013- CBS News:
The Diplomatic Security Service, or the DSS, is the State Department's security force, charged with protecting the secretary of state and U.S. ambassadors overseas and with investigating any cases of misconduct on the part of the 70,000 State Department employees worldwide.
CBS News' John Miller reports that according to an internal State Department Inspector General's memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off. The memo obtained by CBS News cited eight specific examples. Among them: allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut "engaged in sexual assaults" on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and the charge and that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's security detail "engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries" -- a problem the report says was "endemic."
The memo also reveals details about an "underground drug ring" was operating near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and supplied State Department security contractors with drugs.
Aurelia Fedenisn, a former investigator with the State Department's internal watchdog agency, the Inspector General, told Miller, "We also uncovered several allegations of criminal wrongdoing in cases, some of which never became cases."
This week the whistle-blower, Ms. Fedenisn, is suffering a high price for exposing the State Department corruption, according to her attorney, Cary Schulman, who says "They had law enforcement officers camp out in front of her house, harass her children and attempt to incriminate herself."
Via Foreign Policy:
After the CBS News made inquiries to the State Department about the charges, Schulman says investigators from the State Department's Inspector General promptly arrived at Fedenisn's door.Inspector General investigations are supposed to be non-partisan and independent investigations to get to the bottom of wrongdoings within agencies under any administration, but if those findings can be so easily influenced to suppress the truth, then those investigations are worthless.
"They talked to both kids and never identified themselves," he said. "First the older brother and then younger daughter, a minor, asking for their mom's place of work and cell phone number ... They camped out for four to five hours."
Schulman says the purpose of the visit was to get Fedenisn to sign a document admitting that she stole State Department materials, such as the memos leaked to CBS. Schulman says it was crucial that she didn't sign the document because her separation agreement with the State Department includes a provision allowing disclosures of misconduct. Furthermore, none of the materials were classified.
Schulman charged that sending law enforcement officers to pressure her into signing an agreement was heavy handed. "Why not simply mail it, courier it, send it Federal Express or deliver it by any other normal means by which one delivers a demand letter? Why send two federal law enforcement agents?" he asked. He also said that officials from the Inspector General's Office told him they'd be having a "no kidding get together with the DOJ," implying to him that they would push criminal charges if his client didn't cooperate.
In discussing the chain of events with Kel McClanahan, a D.C. attorney who has represented several agency whistleblowers, McClanahan said the case smacked of intimidation.
This is also not the only scandal involving the State Department and whistle-blowers.
Via YID:
Intimidation and punishment seems to be a State Department standard operating procedure. Gregory Hicks deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya during the 2012 attack testified before Congress that he was essentially demoted when he tried to correct the false administration account of the Benghazi attack.
Not only was Hicks essentially demoted, but his original testimony was ignored by the State Department internal investigators.
Then The Daily Beast reported on a mid-level State Department employee who was scapegoated after the internal investigation into Benghazi was conducted.
Following the attack in Benghazi, Libya, senior State Department officials close to Hillary Clinton ordered the removal of a midlevel official who had no role in security decisions and has never been told the charges against him. He is now accusing Clinton’s team of scapegoating him for the failures that led to the death of four Americans last year.This is why there have been calls for special prosecutors, completely independent, to investigate the multitude of scandals surrounding the Obama White House these days. This is also why there are congressional investigations and hearings going on at the moment, into the IRS, EPA, DOJ, State Department and NSA abuses.
I will repeat what I headlined on June 16:
The Corruption Starts And Ends With Obama, Trickles Down Through Agencies
Full Wake up America coverage on the Obama Scandals can be found here.