After failing for more than one year to respond to requests from lawmakers to provide documents related to the Biden State Department's After Action Review (AAR) of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Secretary Antony Blinken is another step closer to being held in contempt of Congress for withholding information critical to congressional oversight.
In a letter on Thursday, Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) announced that the full House Foreign Affairs Committee would hold a markup of the resolution calling for Blinken to be held in contempt next Thursday, March 7.
Today, CHM @RepMcCaul announced announced the full committee will hold a markup to consider a resolution recommending the House find @SecBlinken in contempt of Congress for his continued refusal to comply with a subpoena served by the committee in July.
— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) February 29, 2024
"It has been nearly 14 months since we first requested these documents that are critical to our investigation in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan," Chairman McCaul emphasized in a statement to Townhall.
"The ball is in the secretary’s court – if he wants to avoid being the first Secretary of State in history to be held in contempt of Congress, he can provide these documents," added McCaul.
As Townhall reported earlier this week, McCaul warned Blinken in a letter on Monday that the State Department's continued refusal to turn over notes from interviews conducted as part of the AAR, a review that found significant failures in the State Department's role in the execution of America's departure from Afghanistan after two decades.
More from Townhall's previous reporting on the documents McCaul and the Foreign Affairs committee seek:
Notes and transcripts from those interviews contain first-hand accounts of the disaster as it unfolded and worsened — even while President Biden and his administration painted a rosy but false picture of the deteriorating situation. Still, Blinken refuses to turn them over to McCaul and the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Chairman McCaul's five-page letter notes that the "law does not afford the State Department blanket authority to hide behind 'Executive Branch confidentiality interests' to obstruct Congress’s access to the truth," and reminds Blinken that the Foreign Affairs Committee "has pursued the AAR team’s interview notes in good faith and with every effort to compromise." McCaul underscores that though his efforts to obtain the notes, the State Department "has not negotiated in good faith and has failed to both comply with the Committee’s July 2023 subpoena and fulfill your August 11 personal commitment to cooperate with this investigation."
Earlier this week, spokeswoman Leslie Shedd said the Foreign Affairs Committee "encourages the State Department to dedicate its resources to comply with the subpoena and turn over these documents, now seven months overdue, as soon as possible," rather than "trivializing its continued delays and obstruction."
"It’s extremely foolish and disrespectful – particularly to Afghanistan veterans and the Gold Star families – that these administration officials continue to distort our conversations and play politics rather than cooperate to help ensure such a catastrophe does not happen again," added Shedd.