House Republicans are gearing up to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress and formally condemn other Harris-Biden administration officials over the chaotic August 2021 evacuation of US diplomats and troops from Afghanistan.
Blinken, 62, had been subpoenaed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee Sept. 3 to appear for testimony Tuesday. Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is anticipating America’s top diplomat will be a no-show.
The Foreign Affairs panel wrote in its contempt resolution report released Monday that the subpoena had already been superseded once to accommodate Blinken’s travel schedule — and the Cabinet official still has yet to testify before the committee about the Afghanistan bugout.
“Despite repeated warnings and accommodations, Secretary Blinken refused to appear to provide
his testimony before the Committee,” the report reads. “Accordingly, Secretary Blinken has violated federal law, and must be held in contempt of Congress.”
Contempt of Congress is punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and between one month to one year in prison.
The penalty is rarely used successfully against high-ranking officials of a presidential administration. If Congress votes to hold someone in contempt, it will fall to Harris-Biden Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute the case.
Blinken helped bring about the now-infamous “go to zero” order to evacuate all US personnel from Afghanistan and was designated the “principal decisionmaker” during the withdrawal, the contempt resolution notes.
In a blistering report earlier this month, the committee found that President Biden had his mind set on departing Afghanistan after more than 20 years of US-led military presence, disregarding the advice of both allies and the Afghan government.
It also faults Blinken for keeping the US Embassy in Kabul open too long and failing to request a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) until after the capital city fell to the Taliban in mid-August.
“Blinken’s testimony is necessary to address the findings of the Report, as well as to address the legislative proposals set forth therein. The State Department played a critical role in executing all elements of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan,” the contempt resolution report said.
When contacted for comment, the State Department referred The Post to spokesperson Mathew Miller’s press briefing last week in which he chided that the panel “can’t just set a date when [Blinken] has scheduled meetings to go [to and] participate in a [United Nations] Security Council meeting.”
“I will reiterate what we have told the committee privately and what I have said publicly, which is the Secretary is willing to come and testify before that committee,” Miller said.
A spokesperson for the committee’s majority staff rebutted that assertion, stressing to The Post that the secretary’s team had been “given four months’ notice that his testimony would be required in September” and declined to pick a date.
Blinken and the committee have repeatedly butted heads throughout the panel’s Afghanistan probe. McCaul and his team have also expressed interest in securing testimony from more than a dozen other witnesses on the Afghanistan debacle.
Republicans are also mulling a separate resolution to condemn senior Biden administration officials over the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 US service members in an ISIS-K suicide bombing at Abbey Gate on Aug. 26, 2021.
Officials that would be subject to rebuke include President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Blinken, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and more.
Specifically, the resolution blames them for the chaotic withdrawal, which it stresses caused “harm to the national security and international stature of the United States.”
Defenders of Biden and Harris have sought to pin the blame for the deadly withdrawal on former President Donald Trump, who presided over the Doha Agreement negotiations with the Taliban, which laid a framework for the exit provided conditions were met by the fundamentalists.
During their presidential debate earlier this month, Harris stood by Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan despite the controversy and deaths of servicemembers.
“Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did,” the veep contended. “And as a result, America’s taxpayers are not paying the $300 million a day we were paying for that endless war.”
