State Dept. thanks Fox reporter for flagging deceptive video editing

The State Department's top spokesman offered his public thanks to Fox News reporter James Rosen for alerting the agency to a video from a 2013 briefing that had been edited to delete his question about Iran.

"We took this seriously," John Kirby said at the start of an interview on the network's "Fox & Friends" on Thursday, after the department acknowledged Wednesday that part of a video of Rosen asking a question was purposely deleted rather than being a "glitch" as it previously stated. "And actually before I answer your question, I want to thank James Rosen, your correspondent, for bringing this to my attention because if he hadn't a couple of weeks ago, I would have never known this occurred. So first of all, kudos to him."


Kirby continued, calling Rosen "a journalist I have great respect for, so I thank him for that."

Once presented with the facts of the deleted video excerpt, which featured Rosen asking then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki about the Iran negotiations on Dec. 2, 2013, Kirby said the department "took it seriously" and looked into the matter. "Another thing, I didn't say yesterday that everything was over. I said that we looked at this," Kirby said, emphasizing that if more details come to light, those would factor into any further investigation.

Psaki, now White House communications director, tweeted Wednesday that she "had no knowledge of, nor would I have approved of, any form of editing or cutting my briefing transcript on any subject while @StateDept"

Kirby also flatly rejected the notion that there is a "cover-up" at Foggy Bottom.

Richard Grenell, a former U.S. spokesman to the United Nations and current Fox contributor, appeared earlier on the same program and suggested that there is "a cover-up going on right now," which Kirby strongly contested.

"No, there's no cover-up. Not at all," Kirby responded. "And I think you guys know me well enough to know that I would never abide by any such thing. As I said, we interviewed this individual. We tried to find out what happened. Where I am now is where I was yesterday. We just don't know who made the request and why. But if additional information were to come to life that would change our finding, I would look at it deeper."

The spokesman also noted that the edited video was only on State's YouTube channel, remarking that a full, unedited version was always available "on another official website, the defense video information website as well as the transcript — the written transcript was never edited."

“So the only one that was — I'm not mitigating or making excuses, but the one that was edited was the one that went on that YouTube channel," he said.

Asked whether more videos could have been similarly edited during Psaki's tenure, Kirby replied, "The short answer to your question is, I don't know."

"And I don't know that there's any way I can know. I just don't have the time or the resources or the manpower to go back and look at every single press briefing over the last three or four years," he said. "And I don't know that's a useful use of taxpayer dollars. What I can tell you is, I'm focused on going forward. And going forward we're going to make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.