Michael McCaul moves to hold Blinken in contempt over Afghanistan subpoena 

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has scheduled a markup to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress, saying the secretary has failed to respond to a subpoena issued last week for his testimony about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The markup is scheduled for Sept. 19. Following a markup in the committee, 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 administration.

Blinken has testified before the committee on Afghanistan, appearing before the committee one month after the withdrawal in September 2021 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, the final report published Sunday. 

The report is highly critical of President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan 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 committee 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.”

“It is disappointing that instead of engaging with the Department in good faith and accepting our repeated offers to testify, the Committee instead is short-circuiting further discussion and moving forward with this mark-up,” Miller said in a statement.