Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) is done playing games with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
McCaul announced this week that he will be holding Blinken in contempt for not cooperating with House investigations.
Talking Points…
- The Afghanistan withdrawal
- Holding Blinken in contempt
- Analysis
This week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a bombshell report on the Afghanistan withdrawal called "Willful Blindness: An Assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration's Withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Chaos that Followed." It is an absolutely scathing review of the failures of the Biden administration, especially in terms of the lack of planning by Biden to pull this off. The report begins:
"Our investigation reveals the Biden-Harris administration had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies. However, the administration picked optics over security at each step of the way.
"As a result of the Biden-Harris administration's failure to plan for all contingencies, the U.S. government conducted an emergency evacuation without the necessary personnel, supplies, and equipment. The administration's dereliction of duty placed U.S. servicemembers and U.S. State Department personnel in mortal danger, where the Taliban – our sworn enemy – became the first line of defense. As a direct result of the failure to plan for all contingencies, 13 U.S. servicemembers and 170 Afghans were murdered in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, and 45 U.S. servicemembers and countless Afghans were injured. This was preventable."
The White House, of course, has once again tried to deflect the blame back to the Trump administration, claiming that Trump left them no plan and left the administration handcuffed due to the agreement that Trump had made with the Taliban. That does not hold water, however, as the withdrawal took place eight months after Biden took office, so the planning was on him. Additionally, the Taliban violated the Doha agreement, so Biden was under no obligation to withdraw when he did.
McCaul had requested several times that Blinken come before the committee to answer to the Gold Star families who lost their children that day, but Blinken has been paying McCaul no mind at all. McCaul has finally had enough, now promising to hold Blinken in contempt. He stated:
"This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions. This is a disgrace. I will hold him in contempt if that's what it takes to bring him before the American people."
"Secretary Blinken refuses to take one day out of this month to come before the [Gold Star] families."
As we would expect, the State Department shrugged off McCaul again, with State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel responding:
"The majority isn't truly interested in legislating on Afghanistan policy. If they were, they would have sought to speak to the secretary long ago.
"They would have sought to speak to him to get his input as they make this report. Instead they waited until the report was completely finished to come back to us."
That is a bit misleading because McCaul has been after Blinken for quite some time, having asked Blinken to appear before the committee in May. While Blinken has appeared before House and Senate committees, it is this particular issue where he has been uncooperative with the majority. Even when Biden officials appeared at congressional hearings, their answers were rather elusive.
I would love to see McCaul move forward on this and finally show some backbone, something the Republican Party has been severely lacking as of late. There is no way they can continue to allow the Biden administration to point the finger in Trump's direction for this debacle.
Above all else, my biggest issue was the leaving behind of American citizens when Biden pulled our troops. I remain amazed that the media never made a big deal about this, as it is one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen an administration do to Americans. With our election only two months away, the timing of this could not be better to destroy Harris.
