WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Kerry is concerned that a State Department employee deliberately doctored a press briefing video and removed an excerpt related to the Iran nuclear talks, Toner stated.
"He [Kerry] is certainly aware of it and he is very concerned," Toner stated. "His concern is based on the fact that he wants… the policy changed so that this kind of incident can’t occur in the future."
Toner noted that Kerry takes very seriously the State Department’s commitment to transparency and is fully aware of the steps being taken to implement corrective action.
Earlier on Friday, US Congressman Ed Royce called on the Department of State’s Inspector General to launch an investigation into the incident.
"I write to request that you conduct an investigation into the deliberate omission of portions of the Department’s ‘Daily Press Briefing’ on December 2, 2013 from the publicly available video record," he wrote in a letter. "In tampering with this video, the Bureau of Public Affairs has undermined its mission to ‘communicate timely and accurate information with the goal of furthering US foreign policy’."
The missing video was from a press briefing held on December 2, 2013, and concerned the negotiations that led to reaching the Iran nuclear agreement. The video has since been recovered, and the State Department says a full transcript of the briefing was always available on its official website.
