It is not unusual -- and frankly it can be quite beneficial -- to advancing American interests for the spouse of a cabinet secretary to occasionally travel with him or her. The spouse often engages in separate encounters during such trips meeting with local officials and participating in cultural or educational engagements that flesh out and help inform America's foreign policy.

John Kirby

Categorized in : Top News

It's rare that a president inadvertently makes public classified information, but if he did, it could then be considered declassified, even then, however, there is typically an inter-agency discussion about that. It's not like a magic wand is waved and it becomes thus.

I think the credibility is gone, and I'm really sorry to say that, i don't think there is a crisis of credibility, I think it is shot, and I don't know how they ever get it back.

It's a stunning embarrassment for the FBI, no doubt about it. by John Kirby

It's a stunning embarrassment for the FBI, no doubt about it.

Everybody is getting used to that. by John Kirby

Everybody is getting used to that.

The deal was limited by design, there would have been no way to get a deal if we lumped in everything else we don't like about Iran.

In so doing, they learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why it was made.

There is an avenue of direct communication between the police dep... by John Kirby

There is an avenue of direct communication between the police department and the Russian government.

While we certainly want to foster that engagement, I think you can all understand that real, long-term sustainable answers are not going to be legislated from Washington.

We have been aware of reports, not just in the press, that they may have obtained this capability, obviously, it's something that we take seriously. It's obviously something, clearly that we're mindful of.

They focused on their shared pursuit of options to achieve ?a political transition and discussed the potential for future multilateral meetings on the topic.

We've seen the reports (of clashes), obviously concerned by them, we're looking into it and monitoring it closely. Obviously, our position ... of the right of peaceful protest remains the same.

A Russian official in Baghdad this morning informed U.S. Embassy personnel that Russian military aircraft would begin flying anti-ISIL missions today over Syria, he further requested that U.S. aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during these missions. We've seen media reporting that has suggested Russian missions have begun.

The United States had consistently urged China to release Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, most recently out of concern for his health. We hope Chinese authorities will investigate and make public the circumstances surrounding his death.

We only know about these 15 emails because Sidney Blumenthal had them and provided them to the committee, so there was something to check them against.

I’m not going to get ahead of decisions that the secretary will or won’t make about the recommendations.

The goal for this program is to get them to ... defend their communities, protect their own neighbors and then go on the offense against ISIL, nothing has changed about the policy that there is not going to be a U.S. military solution to Assad.

Our assessment is we could be ready sometime within the next four to six weeks to begin actual training.

I think he's generally concerned that there could be at least at some level a breakdown in ethical behavior and in the demonstration of moral courage.

They are a very dangerous group, they do want to threaten Western interests, including U.S. interests, and we do consider them a threat to the United States of America. We're watching them very closely.

I'd be less than honest if I said that there hadn't been some adjustments already made because of the political uncertainty, we're just going to have to watch this closely going forward.