(
)
Under Hillary Rodham Clinton, the State Department was littered with scandals:
* It hired law-enforcement agents with criminal or checkered backgrounds under a flawed vetting process. As a result, many of the roughly 2,000 agents in the agency’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security are permitted to play only limited roles in agency efforts to police bad conduct and prosecute wrongdoers.
* US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, a big Democratic donor, was accused of soliciting prostitutes, including minors, but the State Department agent examining the claims was called off the investigation even after determining Gutman routinely ditched his security detail.
* Security officer Chuck Lisenbee, stationed in Beirut, Lebanon, allegedly sexually assaulted local guards. The internal probe into the charges lasted three days.
* Huma Abedin, wife of mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and one of Clinton’s closest aides, is being investigated for how she got a six-figure deal to work as a private consultant while still employed by the State Department.
* After terrorists killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, at the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, then-US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described the assault as stemming from a “spontaneous protest” rather than calling what it was — a planned terrorist attack. The assault came after repeated indications that compound security needed to be increased.