IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COVERUP: Sarah Westwood: Clinton State Dept. officials stymied agency investigators.

State Department officials blocked investigations into potentially embarrassing allegations of misconduct from agency investigators and even inspector general staff during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

A former official in the State Department inspector general’s office who was involved with preparing the sanitized report said agency officials also interfered in probes originating in the Office of the Inspector General.

The suggestions of political interference into investigations conducted at the bureau of diplomatic security first appeared in an inspector general report published in February 2013, just as Clinton was leaving the State Department. A Washington Examiner review of earlier drafts of that report suggested potentially damaging passages were removed from the final document. But the State Department official suggests the intervention went further.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the Bureau of Diplomatic Security initially prevented inspectors from reviewing open case files when they began their probe in late 2012.

High-level officials in the inspector general’s office soon informed inspectors they would not be permitted to review closed cases either, said the former Office of the Inspector General employee.

That forced inspectors to base the entirety of their report off interviews with investigators at the bureau of diplomatic security rather than a review of documents.

These people are always hiding something, and it’s never something good.