In case you missed it over the weekend, National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes admitted in a lengthy New York Times Magazine profile that the Obama administration used the media to manipulate and lie to the American people about the nuclear deal with Iran. Here is one of the lies pushed by the administration, which David Reaboi highlighted yesterday at The Federalist.

First, the lies and the denials about the negotiations. It took months before a few dogged journalists started to ask questions about the talks Obama officials were engaged in with Ahmadinejad’s regime. In February 2013, then-State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland flatly denied “direct, secret bilateral talks with Iran.” Republicans on Capitol Hill were nervous about the rumors, but the media was willing to accept the State Department’s denial. The secret negotiations with Iran also alarmed America’s allies in Jerusalem, who had also been kept in the dark about their closest ally’s clandestine meetings with their most potent adversary.



Nuland’s successor, Jen Psaki, would later admit that, as Fox’s James Rosen reported, “the meetings stretched back to 2011.”



After the administration was caught lying, thanks to Rhodes, the State Department deleted video footage in the archives of the exchange Reaboi discusses. Fox News James Rosen reported on the deletion last night.

As Rosen notes, the State Department is working on restoring the footage.

UPDATE: The State Department is arguing the footage of the exact statement under scrutiny went missing because of a "glitch."