WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today is asking why senior State Department officials halted an investigation of alleged sex solicitation by a U.S. Ambassador, opting instead to handle the case as a “management issue.” Grassley’s inquiry follows a State Department Inspector General report, which concluded that factors surrounding the handling of the 2011 case “created an appearance of undue influence and favoritism by Department management.”
According to the State Department IG, in May 2011 the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security launched an investigation into allegations that the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium had solicited a prostitute. However, just two days later, senior department officials halted the investigation after only one of multiple witnesses was interviewed. The IG concluded that additional evidence could have been collected if Diplomatic Security had been allowed to interview more witnesses and the Ambassador himself.
Instead of allowing a full internal investigation or referring the case to the independent IG, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy referred the case to then-Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills. Kennedy and Mills held a single meeting with the Ambassador, who denied the allegations. Mills handled the questioning of the Ambassador, but the IG could not find any documentation of this meeting, nor could it find any documentation to explain the handling of this matter or to justify its treatment as a “management issue.” The ambassador was allowed to return to his post without any further actions taken affecting him.
In the course of its review, the IG was given inconsistent explanations for the decision to handle the case as a “management issue,” including that the allegations of solicitation were “relatively minor.” However, the agency’s own Foreign Affairs Manual prohibits such activities.
In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Grassley is seeking details surrounding the decision to halt the initial Diplomatic Security investigation and ignore usual investigative protocols. Grassley is also asking whether then-Secretary Hillary Clinton was aware of the decision and whether the department has recovered records related to the case following revelations that Clinton and other top aides conduced official business over a private email server.
Grassley’s letter follows various IG and whistleblower reports questioning the State Department’s ability and willingness to hold its own employees accountable for human-trafficking and prostitution violations. Grassley led a coalition of lawmakers in calling on the State Department to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for employees who purchase sex, an activity the department acknowledges can fuel the demand for sex trafficking.
Earlier this year, the Judiciary Committee led the effort to pass the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, and Grassley also sent letters to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security asking them to adopt a zero tolerance policy toward employees who solicit prostitutes.
Text of Grassley’s letter follows:
November 23, 2015
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable John F. Kerry
Secretary of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520
Dear Secretary Kerry:
This past September, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report examining trafficking in persons (TIP) issues at the State Department. In that report, OIG found that “the Department is not well-positioned to hold employees accountable for violations of TIP or to ensure TIP policies and requirements are understood and followed.” This finding was based on the Department’s apparent failure to comply with two of the three recommendations that OIG made four years ago for the purpose of increasing awareness among Department employees about TIP policies and requirements.
Separately, in October 2014, OIG found that, under former Secretary Clinton’s tenure, the Department’s internal investigations of employee misconduct suffered from an appearance of undue influence and favoritism by the Department’s managers and leaders. Several of these allegations involved TIP-related misconduct. For example, one of these investigations concerned a U.S. Ambassador who was suspected of routinely ditching his protective security detail in order to solicit prostitutes in a public park in Belgium in 2011. OIG found that the Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) could not prove the suspected misconduct based on the limited evidence that was collected. Yet, OIG found that additional evidence could have been collected by DS, had DS’s preliminary inquiry in 2011 not been halted—a mere two days after it began—by senior Department officials.
In June 2013, the Department’s spokesperson, Jen Psaki, was asked about the TIP-related allegations against the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, as follows: “Can you assure the American people that no U.S. Ambassadors are engaged in that kind of inappropriate conduct, or that where there have been such credible allegations they have been fully investigated?” In response, Ms. Psaki stated:
Yes, I can confirm they would be fully investigated . . . . [t]he notion that we would not vigorously pursue criminal misconduct in a case, in any case is preposterous. And we’ve put individuals behind bars for criminal behavior. There is a record of that. Ambassadors would be no exception.
Ms. Psaki further stated: “We hold all employees to the highest standards. We take allegations of misconduct seriously and we investigate thoroughly.”
However, the way that the Belgium prostitution case was handled in private is well short of the full and thorough investigation that Ms. Psaki claimed in public. According to OIG:
[B]efore the preliminary inquiry was halted, only one of multiple potential witnesses on the embassy’s security staff had been interviewed. Additionally, DS never interviewed the Ambassador and did not follow its usual investigative protocol of assigning an investigative case number to the matter or opening and keeping investigative case files.
Further, after DS’ inquiry was halted two days after it began, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy decided to treat the matter as a “management issue.” Rather than referring the case to the independent OIG or allowing DS to carry out its inquiry, the case was then handed over to Cheryl Mills—the then Chief of Staff to Secretary Clinton—whom Kennedy designated as the individual in charge of conducting the investigation.
According to OIG, this “investigation” consisted of a single meeting on June 3, 2011, during which Ms. Mills handled the questioning of the Ambassador, as follows:
The Ambassador was recalled to Washington and, in June 2011, met with the Under Secretary of State for Management and the then Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Secretary of State. At the meeting, the Ambassador denied the allegations and was then permitted to return to post. The Department took no further action affecting the Ambassador.
However, as the designated investigating official, Ms. Mills appears to have departed from investigative protocol in a number of important respects. For example, DS managers were not consulted prior to the meeting and they never received a readout of the meeting afterwards:
Had the Under Secretary or the Chief of Staff to the Secretary discussed the matter with DS before the June 3 meeting or provided a readout to DS after the meeting, it would have been reasonable to question the Ambassador about a potential contradiction in the explanation he offered . . . namely, that he entered the park following arguments with his wife. [A] May 31 email to DS senior management . . . reported that the Ambassador’s unusual behavior was “continuing” while his wife was out of the country.
OIG found no evidence that this potential contradiction in the Ambassador’s proffered explanation was ever addressed.
In addition, 6 days before the June 3rd meeting, high-ranking officials within DS exchanged the following communication, suggesting that the outcome of the June 3rd meeting may have been prejudiced, if not predetermined:
Be aware that our friend . . . is being recalled to DC for consultations this week. If things hold he will be allowed to return to post through July 4 celebrations and will leave post permanently immediately thereafter. Not for [distribution to the Regional Security Officer] or anyone else for the moment.
According to OIG, the Ambassador was allowed to return to post following the meeting and continued to serve as Chief of Mission for another two years—well beyond July 4, 2011.
According to the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM), allegations involving Chiefs of Mission that could serve as grounds for disciplinary action and/or criminal prosecution must be immediately referred to DS or OIG to investigate. This provision further states that the Under Secretary can designate individuals other than DS or OIG to conduct an investigation in “exceptional circumstances.”
According to Under Secretary Kennedy, an “exceptional circumstance” in this case was his belief that in Belgium, the solicitation of prostitutes was not a criminal offense. However, the FAM prohibits Department employees from soliciting prostitutes because it constitutes “notoriously disgraceful misconduct” that is subject to discipline, regardless of criminality. Further, the State Department’s own cable on human trafficking provides as follows:
Women, children, and men are trafficked into the commercial sex trade regardless of whether prostitution is legal or criminalized in a country, and thus, the procurement of commercial sex runs the risk of facilitating or supporting human trafficking . . . . [I]nvolvement with the commercial sex industry is unacceptable in light of the diplomatic and foreign policy goals of the United States.
According to OIG, DS managers provided a different explanation as to why this case was treated as a “management issue.” They cited a provision in the FAM that allows a management official to handle an administrative inquiry if the alleged misconduct in question is “relatively minor.” However, soliciting prostitutes is not “relatively minor” misconduct. This past February, 180 trafficking victims’ advocacy groups told this Committee that “[t]he elimination of sex trafficking is fundamentally linked to targeting the demand for commercial sex. Any effort to prevent sex trafficking must focus on the sex buyers and facilitators.”
Reportedly, the State Department’s Office of Legal Adviser (L) offered a third explanation for the Department’s handling of this case: that the disciplinary provision of the FAM cited by the Under Secretary does not apply to Chiefs of Mission who are political appointees and are neither Foreign Service Officers nor Civil Service employees. Yet, L stated that the Department can still discipline such officials by way of dismissal or termination, “if the behavior is egregious.” Given the egregious nature of the alleged misconduct, the Department’s failure to conduct a full investigation of the Belgium case is all the more concerning.
In light of the OIG reports referenced above, the Belgium case raises questions as to whether the Department takes allegations of TIP-related misconduct seriously and investigates them thoroughly, free from undue influence and favoritism. With the foregoing in mind, I respectfully request on behalf of this Committee that you submit responses to the following questions by December 11, 2015:
1. Why did the Department halt DS’s preliminary inquiry of the Belgium case and treat this matter as a “management issue”?
2. Why did Under Secretary Kennedy, DS, and L provide OIG with three different explanations of the decisions referenced in Question 1?
3. Was Secretary Clinton informed of the decision to halt DS’s investigation of the Belgium case or to treat it as a “management issue”? If so, please provide all related records, including emails. If not, please explain why not.
4. In how many other cases involving allegations of employee misconduct was Ms. Mills designated as the individual to conduct the investigation?
5. Under Secretary Kennedy told OIG that he had relied on Section 4322.2 of the FAM to address misconduct allegations involving other Chiefs of Mission. The Under Secretary acknowledged that such misconduct issues can arise several times each year. During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure as Under Secretary, how many misconduct allegations involving Chiefs of Mission have been treated as a “management issue”?
6. OIG states that it searched for and found no contemporaneous evidence of the Under Secretary’s determinations in this case, or of Ms. Mill’s investigation. OIG made this finding in October 2014, before revelations that Secretary Clinton and her senior aides conducted official Department business through a private email server. Does the Department currently have access to any of the records OIG was unable to find? If not, will you commit to notifying this Committee as soon as such access is obtained?
7. In September, I wrote you about Linda Howard, who was found liable in federal district court for human trafficking offenses committed against her Ethiopian housekeeper, while Howard was stationed as a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Japan in 2008 and 2009. Reportedly, however, two years after DS interviewed the victim housekeeper about those offenses, Howard not only remained employed at the Department, but even received an honor award and a cash bonus. Was the Linda Howard case also treated as a “management issue”?
Please number your responses according to their corresponding questions. Please contact Jay Lim of my Committee staff at (202) 224-5225 should you have any questions. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
cc:
The Honorable Patrick Leahy
Ranking Member
The Honorable Steve A. Linick
Inspector General
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