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Much has been made of the apparent double standard the State Department has applied to the Israel Defense Forces as against the U.S. military. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! Last summer, the IDF reportedly shelled an UNRWA school in Rafah, an act condemned immediately by the State Dept., before any investigation had taken place, as “disgraceful” and “appalling”. The rationale was that “the suspicion that militants are operating nearby a site like this…does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of innocent civilians.” With the...

A State Department official closely involved in the Obama administration’s Iran push has been promoting publications from anti-Semitic conspiracy sites and other radical websites that demonize American Jewish groups and Israel, according to sources and documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Alan Eyre, the State Department’s Persian-language spokesman and a member of the negotiating delegation that struck a nuclear deal with Iran earlier this year, has in recent months disseminated articles that linked American-Jewish skeptics of the deal to shadowy financial networks, sought to soften the image of Iranian terrorists with American blood on their hands, and linked deal...

Hillary Clinton's personal attorney balked at the State Department's first effort to erase a newly-classified email from the thumb drive containing about 30,000 messages she turned over to her former agency, according to just-released correspondence. Clinton lawyer David Kendall said deleting the now-secret message could run afoul of promises he previously made to the House Benghazi committee and two inspectors general to preserve electronic copies of all Clinton's work-related message from her tenure as secretary of state. "I have responded to each preservation request by confirming to the requestor that I would take reasonable steps to preserve the 55,000 pages...

The FBI seized four servers from the State Department building a few weeks ago as part of the investigation into classified material improperly stored on Hillary Clinton’s secret email server, particularly the Top Secret documents that have been discovered in her email trove. This revelation comes from Bill Gertz at the Washington Free Beacon, citing anonymous sources familiar with the investigation. Gertz notes that the State Department referred questions about the seized servers to the FBI, which declined to comment on the matter. It would be interesting to know exactly what the FBI computer forensics team is looking for on...

State Dept IG leaked an internal memo citing derailed probes under then-Secy of State Hillary Clinton. Records show staffers who were known sex abusers were given cushy govt jobs or allowed to retire... The bombshell memo accuses ex-Belgium Amb Howard Gutman and members of Clinton’s security detail of hiring prostitutes....Gutman had apparently also solicited sexual favors from "minor children.” Gutman was allowed to retire in July. •Chuck Lisenbee, a former Beirut security officer who was being probed for allegedly sexually assaulting local guards, is now a special agent in Washington for the Office of Diplomatic Vehicles, Enforcement and Outreach, according...

Nuclear annihilation across the globe. This is what a German reporter who successfully embedded with the Islamic State says the terror group is planning. Jurgen Todenhofer released his findings in a book titled “Inside IS - Ten Days in the Islamic State,” reports the UK’s Daily Express. “The terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people. The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS. ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons,” says Todenhofer, calling the group a “nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history.”

Since Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in 2001, they have earned more than $230 million. But in federal filings the Clintons claim they are worth somewhere between $11 million and $53 million. After layering years of disclosures on top of annual tax returns, Forbes estimates their combined net worth at $45 million. Where did all of the money go? No one seems to know, and the Clintons aren’t offering any answers. From 2001 to 2014 the power couple spent $95 million on taxes. Hillary’s 2008 presidential run cost her $13 million. Their two homes cost a combined...

...In an interview with American media ahead of Putin's meeting with US president Obama tomorrow, the Russian leader said: "In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter." US-Russian relations have slumped to a post-Cold War low over the Ukraine crisis, though the two sides share concerns about the threat posed by Islamic State, while disagreeing on the approach. Putin says Damascus should be included in international efforts to fight ISIS - a demand the America rejects, and he heavily criticised US plans to train...

The FBI is being accused of forming a wall around Hillary Clinton over the Clintonemail server. The latest battle happened in court yesterday when the FBI flat-out said no to the State Department on what information could be found on the email server, citing federal policy. “At this time, consistent with long-standing Department of Justice and FBI policy, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation, nor are we in a position to provide additional information at this time.” This shouldn’t be surprising because law enforcement tends to be pretty protective into what they’re investigating....

The FBI refused to cooperate Monday with a court-ordered inquiry into former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email server, telling the State Department that they won’t even confirm they are investigating the matter themselves, much less willing to tell the rest of the government what’s going on. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan had ordered the State Department to talk with the FBI and see what sort of information could be recovered from Mrs. Clinton’s email server, which her lawyer has said she turned over to the Justice Department over the summer. The FBI’s refusal, however, leaves things muddled. “At this...

Judicial Watch today released newly obtained Department of State documents showing a nearly five-month total gap in the emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to return to the State Department late last year. The documents also show that one key State Department official did not want a written record of issues about the Clinton emails. The documents also raise new questions about the accuracy of representations made to Judicial Watch, the courts, Congress, and the public by the Obama administration and Clinton. The documents were produced under court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit Judicial...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and his top advisers have decided, for now, against launching a war to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the next phase of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, according to senior U.S. officials and Western diplomats. With the al-Qaeda terrorist network all but vanquished in Afghanistan, speculation has been growing that Bush would turn his sights on Hussein, a longtime U.S. nemesis who is known to have chemical and biological weapons. Iraq also is believed to be working on obtaining nuclear weapons. But the officials and diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bush's ...

U.S. Department of State Bureau of Counterterrorism Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): Engaging Civil Society in Rehabilitation and Reintegration Estimated Number of Awards: One Deadline for Submissions: September 18, 2015 SUMMARY The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism (CT) announces a Notice of Funding Opportunity for organizations interested in strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations to support the rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremist offenders and the reintegration of returning foreign terrorist fighters. CT invites organizations to submit proposal applications outlining a project concept and capacity to develop and manage such a program across three or more geographic...

Days after Hillary Clinton finally acknowledged that using a private email server while secretary of State was “a mistake,” a super-PAC supporting her says it was actually the responsible, safe approach to data security. While the Democratic presidential nominee's notorious server doesn’t appear to have been hacked, the federal government definitely was, Correct the Record said in a report out Friday. “The U.S. government has been hacked on numerous occasions, compromising even the most sensitive of information,” Correct the Record said. “Anyone who attempts to argue that the contents of Hillary Clinton’s email would have been more secure on a...

The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that a former Hillary Clinton State Department staffer who reportedly set up her home brew server will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify to Congressional committees investigating Clinton’s home email system. Bryan Pagliano, though his attorney, informed the House Benghazi Select Committee which had subpoenaed him to testify on September 10, that he was declining to testify. The Post reported the letter cited the FBI investigation in to Clinton’s email system. Senate committees seeking Pagliano’s testimony were also informed he would be taking the Fifth. ““While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s...

EXCLUSIVE: At least four classified Hillary Clinton emails had their markings changed to a category that shields the content from Congress and the public, Fox News has learned, in what State Department whistleblowers believed to be an effort to hide the true extent of classified information on the former secretary of state’s server. The changes, which came to light after the first tranche of 296 Benghazi emails was released in May, was confirmed by two sources -- one congressional, the other intelligence. The four emails originally were marked classified after a review by career officials at the State Department. But...

None of which they had the authority to de-classify I’ve never had a very high regard for the State Department, mostly due to its tendency - regardless of who is president - to treat every issue that comes up as merely an imperative to spew diplomatic platitudes and do little else. It never occurred to me that the State Department was bereft with complete incompetence at every turn, but upon further reflection it explains a lot. And that certainly appears to be the case, as evidence by the clumsy joint effort of the John Kerry-led State Department and the Hillary...

Readers may be tempted to respond Join the club, but this is — in the words of the Obama administration’s most eloquent figure, a big effin’ deal. The White House has demanded more authority and jurisdiction over private networks as part of its push to improve cybersecurity in the US, even while it has botched its own network security at OPM, the Pentagon, and even the State Department under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. The Department of Homeland Security is tasked with auditing the security of federal government networks, but no one at State ever told DHS about...

The State Department does not appear to have submitted legally required information regarding Hillary Clinton's secret computer server to the Department of Homeland Security during her term as secretary, FoxNews.com has learned. All federal government agencies are mandated to submit a list of systems, vulnerabilities and configuration issues to DHS every 30 days. The department then performs a "cyberscope audit" to ensure security, a responsibility the agency has had since 2010. FoxNews.com learned of the lapse as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request submitted June 11. It is not clear if State Department officials in charge of...

Hillary Clinton’s awkward intransigence in the face of an unrelenting e-mail scandal is playing out under the harsh media spotlight of a presidential campaign. Garnering less attention is the intransigence of a former Clinton colleague at Foggy Bottom, who appears to be leading an effort to shield her potentially classified e-mails from further scrutiny by the intelligence community. He is Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, and for weeks now he has denied the intelligence community inspector general (IG) access to Clinton’s e-mails, while substantially limiting the access granted to the State Department’s own IG. He’s also ignored official guidance from...