State Department Cover-Ups: Just How Corrupt Has the State Department Become?

It looks as though the Obama administration is headed for yet another meltdown.

Documents uncovered by CBS suggest that the state department has been covering up the illegal activities of its members.

The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) is responsible for protecting U.S. ambassadors and investigating allegations of misconduct of more than 70,000 State Department employees around the world. According to an internal State Department Inspector General’s memo, several recent investigations into these employees have been manipulated and halted, all by State Department officers.

Eight specific cases are cited in the memo, including a State Department security official in Beirut that allegedly perpetrated acts of “sexual assault” on foreign nationals hired as security guards for the embassy; members of former Secretary of State Clinton’s security detail that allegedly “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries; an underground drug ring that was operating near the US Embassy in Baghdad and allegedly supplying State Department security contractors with drugs; and a U.S. ambassador who held a sensitive diplomatic post and "routinely ditched ... his protective security detail," allegedly to "solicit sexual favors from prostitutes."

The memo argues that "hindering such cases calls into question the integrity of the investigative process, can result in counterintelligence vulnerabilities, and can allow criminal behavior to continue."

But this is not the State Department’s first tangle with sketchy characters and murky backroom cover ups.

Last September, the American embassy at Benghazi was attacked by heavily armed terrorists and four Americans were killed. In the nine months since then, hearings and investigations have dragged on about what happened, how it was handled, and if it could have been prevented.

The most recent development was the release of over 25,000 pages of State Department and CIA emails. The most interesting thing to come out of the reams of paper was the discussion of “talking points” drafted by the CIA to explain the events at Benghazi.

These talking points underwent twelve substantial revisions in which references to Al-Qaeda terrorist Assad al-Sharia and CIA warnings of a potential plot against the embassy were removed.

The State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, wrote in an email that including the CIA warnings "could be used by Members [of Congress] to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that? Concerned … ”

The CIA press official Shawn Turner had similar concerns in the drafting of the talking points, writing "I've been very careful not to say we issued a warning."

Considering all of the veiled wrongdoing and fudging of the facts going on, is the State Department now just another corrupted office in Washington?

No. The DSS obviously is aware of the issues and is working to investigate those who have been breaking the law. While a few dozen people could be charged with criminal activities, over 70,000 honest people are doing important work for America. If those responsible for the obstruction of the DSS investigations are held accountable, the system will fix itself, just as it was intended to.