The U.S. State Department has denied allegations from a former department investigator who claimed top officials tried to halt or delay several potentially damaging investigations into prostitutions and drugs.
Aurelia Fedenisn, the whistle-blowing former investigator, also claimed that when the department's Office of Inspector General tried to expose the interference in the report, the language was scrubbed.
According to ABC News, a senior State Department official offered a point-by-point pushback in response to an internal Office of Inspector General memo dated Oct. 23, 2012.
The memo detailed eight investigations by the investigative arm of the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
The memo alleged that, in those cases, senior officials interfered with the investigations.
According to the report, the cases included allegations that an ambassador solicited prostitutes in a park near a U.S. embassy.
The memo also revealed that several members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's security detail hired prostitutes while on official travel, and that a drug ring was running near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
In each of the cases, the memo alleged, more senior officials, including, in some cases, individuals close to Clinton, called off the investigations, the report said.
The senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, insisted that the investigations were not called off for political reasons.
He added that full investigations were done and in many cases, but there was insufficient evidence to warrant prosecutions or in-house discipline, the report added.
