Congressional Delegations

Issa joins probe of State Department prostitution cover-up allegations

{mosads}A leaked draft report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General raised concerns with eight probes – including allegations that the ambassador to Belgium used prostitutes. Ambassador Howard Gutman has denied the allegations and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called accusations of political meddling “preposterous.”

Issa is leading the investigation into the Obama administration’s security lapses in Libya and its response to the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. 

“This is a much more contained piece of oversight [than Benghazi]. My expectation is that Chairman Royce has primary, because the question of whether or not there’s good internal controls of activities of State Department employees falls very much within his jurisdiction.”

He declined to call the new allegations a “scandal” — yet. 

“I respect the fact that you don’t take lightly allegations against ambassadors, but you also have a reasonable expectation of getting it right,” said Issa, a former member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I wouldn’t call it a scandal as much as an area that needs to get looked at to get accurate [information] both for Congress and the public.”

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