Snopes tries to give Hillary Clinton cover over $6 billion lost at State Department
Hillary Clinton attacking Donald Trump’s business losses and recent tax return findings have evolved into a meme calling out Clinton and the State Department’s “missing” $6 billion. The liberal leaning Snopes has responded in the Google News feed with a defense of the former First Lady declaring the assertion as “mostly false.”
“An inspector general’s report criticized Hillary Clinton’s State Department for improper record keeping on $6 billion in government contracts” is declared as the TRUTH. In contrast:
“WHAT’S FALSE: The $6 billion was never “lost,” “missing,” or “misplaced.”
Snopes notes that “Hillary Clinton’s State Department received an inspector general’s alert in 2014 charging that the paperwork on $6 billion in government contracts hadn’t been properly accounted for, it didn’t mean, despite some loosey-goosey media reporting at the time, that the money itself was ‘lost’ or ‘missing.’ State Department inspector general Steve Linick clarified what happened thusly:”
Some have concluded based on this that $6 billion is missing. The alert, however, did not draw that conclusion. Instead, it found that the failure to adequately maintain contract files — documents necessary to ensure the full accounting of U.S. tax dollars — “creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions.” (emphasis carried over from Snopes, The Dispatch)
photo TaxRebate.org.uk
During an ongoing audit of State’s Bureau of African Affairs, the report said, officials did not provide complete files for any of the eight contracts reviewed, with a value of $34.8 million.
Two task orders valued at more than $1 billion, part of an Afghanistan contract under the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, were incomplete, as were task orders for protective services in Afghanistan worth an additional $1 billion.
In one IG investigation, a contract file lacked documentation reflecting that the $52 million contract had been modified and awarded to “a company owned by the spouse of a contractor employee.” In another, a file for a contract valued at $100 million “was not properly maintained and for a period of time was hidden” by the contracting officer.
Such failure, the IG said, “exposes the Department to significant financial risk and makes . . . oversight more difficult. It creates conditions conducive to fraud. . . [and] impairs the ability” of the government to protect its interests and “to punish and deter criminal behavior.”
So, basically the incompetence of Clinton’s State Department is getting cover by the Obama administration and Snopes by quoting State Department inspector general Steve Linick.
Is the conservative media piling on with bias and leading headlines, yes there are. One point is very valid: if Trump should be criticized for losing a ton of his own money, Secretary Clinton should be doubly critiqued for losing $6 billion of tax payers funds.
