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A top State Department spokesman on Thursday boasted that his department is
open and transparent, but could hardly finish the sentence before erupting
in laughter.
"Welcome to the State Department," spokesman Mark Toner said. "I think we
have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in
transparency and democracy."
Toner then burst out laughing at his own comments as reporters in the room
laughed with him.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to break out laughing there," he said. The incident
prompted Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee to say, "I thought it was an
exercise in spin and obfuscation."
Toner proceeded to give a live example of why he was laughing at the idea
that State is open and transparent. Toner was asked if he could share more
details about the controversial $400 million cash payment to Iran, just as
Iran was releasing four U.S. hostages.
When asked Thursday if he could shed any more light on the controversial
payment, Toner said he couldn't be any more transparent.
"We generally make a practice of not commenting publicly on the details of
these kinds of transactions, such as settlement payments," he said. "We don'
t normally identify the parties involved, and that's just due to the
confidential nature of these transactions."
He also said he couldn't even confirm the details of the cash payment as
reported by the Wall Street Journal. "Not prepared to confirm them."
When it was pointed out that his answers weren't very transparent, Toner
said, "your point is well taken."
The State Department has come under fire for years for failing to be as
transparent as it claims. For example, it took several months for it to
finally release the emails it had from former Secretary Hillary Clinton,
which it only did pursuant to a court order.
Then, State learned that thousands of additional emails that Clinton erased
had been captured by the FBI. State has said it would release those as well,
but has not given a timeline.
This year, after it was discovered that one of its press briefing videos was
altered, State Department spokespeople said immediately that it was just a
"glitch." Three weeks later, State finally admitted the video was altered
intentionally, but it then said it had no further ideas on how to
investigate how this happened.
Only after Secretary of State John Kerry demanded a more thorough
investigation did officials agree to look again, but eight weeks later, no
progress has been made. |
