Home International Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has scheduled a markup on Sept. 19 to carry Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress, saying he failed to answer a subpoena issued final week for his testimony on the Afghanistan exit.
Following a committee markup, the complete Home would wish to vote on the measure to refer it to the Division of Justice for prosecution — a transfer unlikely to be carried out beneath the Biden administration, however that may very well be handled in another way in a possible second Trump time period.
Blinken has beforehand testified in regards to the Afghanistan withdrawal, showing earlier than the committee in September 2021, one month after the withdrawal, for greater than 5 hours. He has additionally appeared earlier than the committee to testify on President Biden’s price range requests for the State Division, the place he answered questions on Afghanistan.
The State Division mentioned in an announcement to The Hill that Blinken has testified earlier than Congress on Afghanistan greater than 14 instances, together with 4 instances in entrance of the Home International Affairs Committee.
However McCaul issued a brand new subpoena for Blinken’s testimony on Sept. 3 following the conclusion of his greater than three-year investigation into the U.S. withdrawal, with the final report published Sunday.
The report is extremely essential of Biden’s choice to withdraw all U.S. army forces from Afghanistan and accuses the administration of failing to plan for all contingencies.
Finally, the internationally backed Afghan authorities fled within the face of a takeover from the Taliban and the U.S. carried out a last-minute and chaotic evacuation of America’s diplomatic and army personnel from the nation. And whereas greater than 120,000 civilians had been airlifted out over the course of two weeks, hundreds of Americans and Afghan allies had been left behind.
McCaul, and Republicans on the whole, have additionally targeted blame on the Biden administration over a suicide bombing carried out by ISIS-Okay at Kabul’s worldwide airport that killed 13 U.S. service members, roughly 170 Afghans, and wounded scores extra in the course of the withdrawal.
Throughout a press convention earlier this week, McCaul stood alongside Gold Star households of among the service members killed, criticizing Blinken for failing to decide to testify earlier than the panel in September.
“It is a shame, and I’ll maintain him in contempt if that’s what it takes to deliver him earlier than the American individuals, as a result of they deserve the solutions,” he mentioned.
State Division spokesperson Matthew Miller mentioned the secretary is unavailable to testify on dates proposed by the committee, however the company has proposed “quite a few cheap options to adjust to Chairman McCaul’s request for a public listening to, together with providing various senior-level witnesses to testify subsequent week or making the Secretary obtainable to testify at a later date that works for each his and the Committee’s schedule.”
Learn the complete report at TheHill.com.