House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has scheduled a markup on Sept. 19 to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress, saying he failed to respond to a subpoena issued last week for his testimony on the Afghanistan exit.
Following a committee markup, the full House would need to vote on the measure to refer it to the Department of Justice for prosecution — a move unlikely to be carried out under the Biden administration, but that could be treated differently in a potential second Trump term.
Blinken has previously testified about the Afghanistan withdrawal, appearing before the committee in September 2021, one month after the withdrawal, for more than five hours. He has also appeared before the committee to testify on President Biden’s budget requests for the State Department, where he answered questions on Afghanistan.
The State Department said in a statement to The Hill that Blinken has testified before Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times, including four times in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
But McCaul issued a new subpoena for Blinken’s testimony on Sept. 3 following the conclusion of his more than three-year investigation into the U.S. withdrawal, with the final report published Sunday.
The report is highly critical of Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and accuses the administration of failing to plan for all contingencies.
Ultimately, the internationally backed Afghan government fled in 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 military personnel from the country. And while more than 120,000 civilians were airlifted out over the course of two weeks, thousands of American citizens and Afghan allies were left behind.
McCaul, and Republicans in general, have also focused blame on the Biden administration over a suicide bombing carried out by ISIS-K at Kabul’s international airport that killed 13 U.S. service members, roughly 170 Afghans, and wounded scores more during the withdrawal.
During a press conference earlier this week, McCaul stood alongside Gold Star families of some of the service members killed, criticizing Blinken for failing to commit to testify before the panel in September.
“This is a disgrace, and I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people, because they deserve the answers,” he said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the secretary is unavailable to testify on dates proposed by the committee, but the agency has proposed “a number of reasonable alternatives to comply with Chairman McCaul’s request for a public hearing, including offering alternative senior-level witnesses to testify next week or making the Secretary available to testify at a later date that works for both his and the Committee’s schedule.”
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
