Thread: State Department Covered Up Pedophilia by Ambassador Who Was Obama and Hillary Donor

Clinton - 2016

State Department Covered Up Pedophilia by Ambassador Who Was Obama and Hillary Donor

June 11, 2013
by Daniel Greenfield

“So he sexually abused a bunch of kids? What difference does it make?

When I wrote about this yesterday, I suspected that the ambassador in question was an Obama donor. I was right. And as ambassadors go, Howard Gutman is a truly repulsive character.

In 2011, Gutman claimed that Muslim violence against Jews wasn’t anti-Semitic. It was just a “reaction” to Israel. Maybe he can explain why his sex abuse of children isn’t really pedophilia. Just a reaction to Israeli settlements.

A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes.

A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

A DS agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors.

“The agent began his investigation and had determined that the ambassador routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” says the memo.

“The ambassador’s protective detail and the embassy’s surveillance detection team . . . were well aware of the behavior.”

Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy ordered the investigation ceased, and the ambassador remains in place, according to the memo.

Gutman was a big Democratic donor before taking the post, having raised $500,000 for President Obama’s 2008 campaign and helping finance his inaugural.

Bashing Jews and excusing Anti-Semitism didn’t get Gutman fired. Neither did trying to hire child prostitutes. What does he have to do to get fired? Stop giving Obama money?

Who else did Howard Gutman give money to in 2008? He donated to Obama… and to Hillary Clinton. I guess Howie was hedging his bets to see who could get him in range of a bunch of little kids.

And Hillary Clinton covered up his child abuse in exchange for the promise of 2016 cash. But what difference does it make?


http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgr...hillary-donor/

That is really disgusting.

Yes, it is quite disturbing, but as large as the government is, reality says that it will be a true microcosm of the population as a whole. When investigated for a post I am sure that he had no record of crime to be discovered. With the apparent wealth he has, it will be impossible to find how many bribes or hush money withdrawals he made. It is another one of America's dirty little secrets, or many, possibly.

Reports downplay key Hillary aide's role in suppressing State Dept. investigations

BY SARAH WESTWOOD |
JUNE 20, 2015 | 5:00 AM


Cheryl Mills speaks onstage at the Cinema For Peace event benefitting J/P Haitian Relief Organization in Los Angeles held at Montage Hotel on January 14, 2012 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images For J/P Haitian Relief Organization and Cinema For Peace)

Hillary Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department played a role in covering up allegations that an ambassador had solicited prostitutes on the job, but it was papered over in a review of a botched inspector general probe published in October 2014.

The public version of the inspector general report suggests it was Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary for management, who swept the allegations against Belgian Ambassador Howard Gutman under the rug in 2011.

But an internal version of the same report obtained by America Rising through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the Washington Examiner reveals chief of staff Cheryl Mills' hand in protecting Gutman from an emerging internal probe.

While the public report only briefly mentions the fact that Mills attended a June 3, 2011 meeting with Gutman and Kennedy in Washington regarding the prostitution case, the internal version suggests Mills conducted the questioning of the ambassador.

Gutman had allegedly frequented a section of the 30-acre public park — across the street from the U.S. embassy complex in Belgium — that was "known for prostitutes and other illicit activity."

The ambassador's "interest" in the illicit section of the park was "common knowledge" among members of Gutman's security team, the report said.

But after Gutman told Kennedy and Mills at the Washington meeting that he entered the Belgian park "in order to blow of steam" and explained that he "likes to take walks alone," the two reportedly allowed Gutman to return to his post and shut down the investigation into his actions.

No State Department record of the June 3 meeting with Mills exists, the inspector general found.

Gutman went on to serve as the ambassador to Belgium for two years after the incident.

The internal report said a diplomatic security investigator was never permitted to interview the ambassador and was only able to conduct one interview with a single member of Gutman's security team before "the agent was directed to stop any further inquiry."
The investigator was informed by upper management that he was not to conduct any additional interviews that "would raise the attention of this matter" and to simply jot down everything that had been gathered in the two days the investigation had been open and prepare a memo for "seniors" in the agency.

That memo is the only surviving record of the probe, the watchdog found.

The decision to end the investigation was made by Kennedy, according to the internal report.

Over the previous two years, diplomatic security had investigated 13 different prostitution cases involving lower-ranked officials. The inspector general "found no evidence that any of those inquiries were halted and treated as 'management issues' by senior officials," as was the case with Gutman.

Kennedy made the probe a management issue rather than a criminal investigation shortly after the allegations came to light.

The incident raises questions about Mills' activities under Clinton given evidence that Mills also interfered to shield the nominee for ambassador to Iraq from an unrelated investigation during Clinton's tenure.

Mills has been a close confidante of the former secretary of state since Bill Clinton's days in the White House.

Her personal involvement in high-level State Department cover-ups raises additional questions about whether Clinton was aware of what her chief of staff was doing at the agency she oversaw.

For example, Clinton's public schedule for the day of the Gutman meeting shows the secretary of state would have been in the building while Mills and Kennedy were speaking with the embattled ambassador.

A political appointee, Gutman had bundled half a million dollars for Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/re...rticle/2566691

Records suggest Hillary chief of staff blocked probe of ambassador nominee

BY SARAH WESTWOOD |
JUNE 18, 2015 | 4:07 PM




The ambassador-designate, Brett McGurk, was accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with a...

Top State Department staff under Hillary Clinton allegedly blocked an investigation into the president's nominee for ambassador to Iraq.

The ambassador-designate, Brett McGurk, was accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal and funneling her information he was not authorized to disclose.

McGurk withdrew his name from consideration for the ambassadorship in the face of a growing scandal over emails that revealed his extra-marital affair with the reporter, Gina Chon. His relationship with the journalist prompted concerns among Republican lawmakers, although the extent of the internal cover-up of his conduct was not then known.

McGurk is presently one of President Obama's key advisers on the Islamic State, having survived the scandal in 2012 with the help of higher-ups in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

An inspector general memo dated October 23, 2012 and obtained by the Washington Examiner alleges Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to then-Secretary Clinton, prevented investigators in that bureau from speaking with McGurk.

"[The special investigations division] never interviewed McGurk, allegedly because Cheryl Mills from the Secretary's office interceded. Without that interview, [special investigations division] has been unable to close the case," the memo said.

"Email from Mills reportedly shows her agreeing to a particular course of action for the case, but then reneging and advising McGurk to withdraw his name from consideration for the ambassadorship," the document continued.

A former official with the State Department's office of inspector general said Mills was briefed about the situation "as a courtesy" by staff in the bureau of diplomatic security. The former official requested anonymity to speak candidly.

McGurk withdrew his name from consideration in June 2012.

The "assumption was that [Mills] had tipped him off" to the impending investigation, the former official said.

Peter Van Buren, a former foreign service officer and career diplomat who served in the State Department for 24 years, said there were "powerful rumors" circling at the time that suggested McGurk's missteps in Iraq were part of a larger pattern of behavior.

"There were rumors inside the State Department that the investigation into McGurk's actions in Iraq was squashed at the very highest levels," Van Buren told the Washington Examiner.

Van Buren retired from the State Department in 2012 after a lengthy legal battle with the State Department over whistleblower disclosures he made in a book about his time in Iraq with the agency from 2009 to 2010.

During his nearly quarter-century at the State Department, Van Buren said he saw a variety of management styles from the secretary's office as agency leadership shifted.

"I think what a lot of State Department people felt was that previous secretaries were focused more on protecting the institution and, by extension, themselves," he said. "Whereas the Clinton people were 90 percent concerned about protecting Hillary and maybe 10 percent concerned about protecting the institution."

Although the investigation was eventually closed in July 2013, speculation that he was about to be named to another high-level position involving Iraq began swirling months earlier.

McGurk is presently Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.

His high-profile role puts him at the forefront of the conflict with the Islamic State. For example, he appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday to announce the government's intention to equip tribal fighters in Iraq to support their fight against the Islamic State.

McGurk's affair with Chon, to whom he is now married, became the subject of public scrutiny after a 2012 "computer hacking incident" in Baghdad resulted in the publication of racy emails back and forth between the two while he was in line to be the next ambassador to Iraq.

The leaked emails suggested at the time the two had a sexual relationship. But they also suggested the ambassador-designate may have given sensitive information to the reporter.

The communications show McGurk asked Chon to text him on his Blackberry because texting was a "better way to engage in sensitive deliberations" than emailing from his government address.

Several messages between McGurk and the Journal reporter suggested he used his position to provide Chon with access to Iraqi sources.

"The emails were labeled Sensitive But Unclassified, and allegedly the reporter drew from the emails in writing articles about a proposed Status of Forces Agreement and the U.S. military withdrawal date," the October 2012 inspector general memo said. "Some of the information may have been cleared for release, but other information reportedly was not."

None of the allegations against McGurk made it into a February 2013 inspector general report detailing potential problems with the structure of the bureau of diplomatic security.

However, McGurk's case appeared alongside several others in earlier versions of the same report. The heavily-edited documents have raised new questions about the independence of Harold Geisel, the temporary inspector general for all four years of Clinton's tenure.
Geisel was replaced by permanent Inspector General Steven Linick just 16 days after filing an affidavit in federal court in an attempt to keep the inspector general documents from leaving the State Department.

Linick reviewed the allegations of interference laid out in the controversial drafts and highlighted McGurk's case as one that had indeed been subjected to pressure from above.

The public version of Linick's October 2014 report downplayed the notion that Mills had interfered in the McGurk probe. That report "found no evidence of any undue influence by the Chief of Staff/Counselor," which would have been Mills.

But a nonpublic version of the same report obtained by the Examiner reveals Mills took steps in June 2012 to protect McGurk as the scandal over his affair with Chon grew.

Mills approved a letter written by former ambassadors in support of McGurk days after the sensitive emails leaked online, the nonpublic version said.

A day after members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for McGurk to be stripped of his nomination, Mills "was advised by the assistant secretary for legislative affairs that...securing the nominee's confirmation was going to be a 'long shot.'"
"On the next day...the Chief of Staff [Mills] spoke to the nominee, who agreed that the nomination should be withdrawn," the report said.

By August of that year, McGurk was in talks with Mills "and others" about his "willingness to continue to serve as an adviser to the U.S. ambassador."

Months later, McGurk and Mills mulled the possibility of moving him to a position in the White House.

The nonpublic report discovered the investigation had "slowed to a stop" when the investigator in charge was unable to secure an interview with McGurk.

"The agent was not given a reason for the delay in the interview of the nominee," the document said.

After a top diplomatic security official, Eric Boswell, inexplicably impeded an interview of McGurk, "that delay brought the investigation to a temporary standstill," the published report said.

A State Department spokesperson confirmed McGurk was interviewed by the bureau of diplomatic security before the case was closed in July 2013, months after Clinton and her staff had left the agency and more than a year after the probe began.

Records suggest that interview took place in November 2012, long after the impropriety first came to light.

Boswell, who resigned the next month over his alleged role in the failures that led to the Benghazi terror attack, told inspector general staff that he had stalled the interview because McGurk was being considered for the White House job. If McGurk had moved to the White House, Boswell said, the investigation would have been shifted to the FBI.

Linick's team said that "rationale...was not justified."

"Much of the delay was attributable to inaction by [Boswell]," the nonpublic report said.

This story has been updated to reflect information taken from newly-obtained documents.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/re...rticle/2566541