00:00And let me ask you also about your view, the Secretary's view, about the legality
00:07of a foreign country holding an American citizen from Iowa who has not been charged with any crime
00:14and holding his passport and not permitting him to return home in the case of what's happening
00:21in Punta Cana and the Dominican Republic, where this young man and his family and his lawyers
00:27say that he has not been permitted to leave the Dominican Republic, that he has been a
00:33cooperating witness, he's not charged with any crime. Does the State Department have any view
00:39about the rights of that U.S. citizen? Well, I think what's appropriate here is for me to
00:47not, and this is unfortunately the nature of the State Department and what we do,
00:51when it comes to diplomatic efforts, whether they exist or not, the nature of legal frameworks for
00:57individuals, the privacy issues involved, that's not something I can get into any detail about.
01:02He has spoken publicly and his family have. Does he have consular access?
01:07Well, that's his – I think all of us have a right to speak and to be known,
01:13but we have a standard and a protocol here that we won't discuss a private situation,
01:19a private case. Certainly when it comes to diplomacy, diplomatic relationships between
01:23one country and another, I'm not going to go into those details. All right.
