The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that the State Department Inspector General's office removed portions of a 2013 report that would have reflected poorly on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The omitted details, which were brought to light by whistleblower in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, concerned the efforts of Clinton's security team to cover up alleged misconduct, including sexual abuse and pedophilia, by State Department staff.

An early draft of the report provided by whistleblower Richard Higbie noted that "in some cases superiors in [diplomatic security] and in senior levels of the State Department have prejudiced the commencement, course and outcome of [special investigations division] investigations." However, the final, published version of the report is much more vague, simply noting that "the perception exists among knowledgeable parties that external influences have negatively affected some [special investigations division] investigations," and that the oversight process "lacks a firewall to preclude the [diplomatic security] and Department of State hierarchies from exercising undue influence in particular cases."

The early draft also mentioned a specific case involving a Regional Security Office alleged to have "engaged in serious criminal conduct including sexual abuse of local embassy staff." For some reason, this did not appear in the published report. Another omitted passage suggested that a senior member of the Secretary of State's staff may have intervened to protect an ambassador who was being investigated for pedophilia:

"Sources reported that a senior ‘7th Floor' Department official ordered [diplomatic security] to stop the investigation of an ambassador accused of pedophilia, and another such senior official had [diplomatic security] stop an investigation of an ambassador-designate," the draft reads. The seventh floor is the location of the secretary of state's office, as well as the offices of the deputy secretary and the undersecretaries, according to the State Department's website. If any of these details were removed because of exculpatory information, this is never stated.

Hillary Clinton successfully defended a child rapist in 1975, in part by attacking the victim's credibility. Her client's profession of innocence, she said, "forever destroyed" her faith in lie-detector tests.