House Foreign Affairs panel votes to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt for refusal to testify on Afghanistan withdrawal
The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along party lines to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt for refusing to testify on Tuesday about the botched August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Following hours of deliberations, the GOP-led panel voted 26-25, with every Republican in favor of holding Blinken in contempt of Congress and every Democrat opposed.
“Rather than take accountability for this, the secretary hides from the American people. He would prefer to hide rather than be before this committee today,” said Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
“The Secretary’s willful indifference has brought us to this moment.”
Republican panel members had hoped that Blinken would shed light on the “go-to-zero” order in Afghanistan that prompted the evacuation of US diplomats and troops, culminating in a chaotic few days at the Kabul International Airport.
An ISIS-K suicide bomber took advantage of the mad dash and detonated at Abbey Gate outside the airport, killing 13 US military service members.
In a scathing report earlier this month, GOP committee members faulted Blinken for keeping the US Embassy in Kabul open too long during the evacuation and failing to request a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) until after the capital city fell to the Taliban in mid-August.
Asked Tuesday when the full House would vote on the measure, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that it will not occur until after the 2024 election on Nov. 5.
House Republicans barely passed a contempt measure earlier this year against Attorney General Merrick Garland for denying investigative committees access to audio tapes of President Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.
That measure never passed the Democrat-controlled Senate, but even if it had, the Justice Department would be unlikely to prosecute.
The Blinken contempt measure is slated for a similar fate, if it ever receives a House vote.
The only recent former administration officials to serve prison sentences for contempt of Congress measures were alums of the Trump White House: trade adviser Peter Navarro and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Both were hit with four-month federal sentences for flouting subpoenas from the House Select January 6th Committee investigating the 2021 Capitol riot.
They each claimed that executive privilege barred them from cooperating.
According to the Associated Press, Blinken wrote a letter to McCaul on Sunday that stated he was “profoundly disappointed” about the move and asked whether the two could not find a “good faith” solution.
“As I have made clear, I am willing to testify and have offered several reasonable alternatives to the dates unilaterally demanded by the Committee during which I am carrying out the President’s important foreign policy objectives,” the Secretary of State said.
McCaul in Tuesday’s markup debate said he had given Blinken any date in September to testify — but been ignored.
In a Monday report on the contempt resolution, the Foreign Affairs Committee said it had already superseded its subpoena for Blinken’s appearance once in order to accommodate the Cabinet official’s busy travel schedule amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Blinken was flying from Egypt to France and then to New York over the past six days, holding additional meetings about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Democrats on the panel decried the contempt vote as “political theater.”
“It’s not difficult for the American people to see this for what it is,” said ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-NY).
“Another attempt to put another senior Biden administration official name into negative headlines.”
“Today’s action by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs was a naked political exercise masquerading as oversight, designed only to further the majority’s partisan interests under the guise of asking questions that have long ago been answered,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller in a statement.
“Secretary Blinken has testified before Congress on the Afghanistan withdrawal fourteen times, including four times before Chairman McCaul’s committee,” he went on. “The State Department made clear in repeated communications with the committee that he is willing to testify again, but was unavailable to do so today because he is engaged in high level diplomacy at the United Nations General Assembly, including participating in a UN Security Council session on Ukraine and leading a meeting of a global coalition to fight fentanyl trafficking. Chairman McCaul apparently believes it is in the nation’s interest to cede the diplomatic field to America’s adversaries, but we strongly disagree.”
“Rather than accept our offer for the Secretary to testify on a later date or for an alternative witness to testify today, Chairman McCaul chose to move forward with a divisive, party-line vote,” he added. “It is unfortunately clear the Chairman is more interested in chasing headlines than engaging in actual oversight.”
