Pirate's Cove

The most transparent administration ever?

(CBS News) CBS News has uncovered documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks.

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.

CBS takes great pains to avoid mentioning when all this was really occurring, and there could have been issued during the previous administration. I’d also like to note that I am not placing Blame on Mr. Obama for this specific issue, regardless of whether he’s POTUS or not, unless something comes out that shows he was notified of this cover-up. It is interesting to note, though, that his administration seems to have a very skewed version of “transparency”.

In one specific and striking cover-up, State Department agents told the Inspector General they were told to stop investigating the case of a U.S. Ambassador who held a sensitive diplomatic post and was suspected of patronizing prostitutes in a public park.

The State Department Inspector General’s memo refers to the 2011 investigation into an ambassador who “routinely ditched … his protective security detai” and inspectors suspect this was in order to “solicit sexual favors from prostitutes.”

Unsurprisingly, nothing was done to the ambassador.

Is this an Obama scandal? Only in terms of him being the Chief Executive and this happening on his watch. It is more a continuation of the problem with Big Government and its pattern of misconduct.

More: Hey, I wonder if Obama will soon say he first learned about this from media reports, and that he’s going to make sure everyone responsible will be held responsible…and given promotions? Anyhow, Bryan Preston writes regarding one of the primary players mentioned in the CBS article

Patrick Kennedy’s becoming famous. He was at the center of Benghazi, too. According to a report by Sharyl Attkisson, Kennedy is the State Department official who kept the Foreign Emergency Response Team (FEST) on the sidelines during the Benghazi attack.

Ed Morrissey mentions Kennedy, as well. Weasel Zippers: “Scandal-palooza rolls on.” Patterico: “In other words, another day in the Obama administration.”

BTW, Hot Air mentions yet another scandal featuring HHS employees engaging in insider trader.