Blinken urges House Foreign Affairs chair to withdraw subpoena and defends 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal
By Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler, CNN
(CNN) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he is “profoundly disappointed” with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul after the Texas Republican sent a subpoena and threatened to hold Blinken in contempt following repeated requests to accommodate a hearing as part of the committee’s investigation into the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“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,” Blinken wrote in a five-page letter Sunday, adding that he spoke with McCaul about the matter in August and early September and “personally sought to reach an accommodation” with the panel.
Blinken urged McCaul to withdraw the subpoena, reconsider the contempt proceedings and seek “good faith engagement with the (State) Department to find an appropriate accommodation.”
McCaul has been investigating the Biden administration’s handling of the deadly 2021 evacuation and decided to release his final report in the weeks before the presidential election as he has simultaneously pressed for Blinken to appear before the committee on the topic once again.
McCaul’s quest for holding the Biden administration accountable for the chaotic departure comes as former President Donald Trump’s campaign seeks to make the decisions surrounding the exit a key issue in the final weeks before November’s presidential election.
McCaul is also seeking to place Vice President Kamala Harris at the center of the debacle by naming the “Biden-Harris administration” throughout his committee’s report on the withdrawal. The panel had previously only referred to the Biden administration in an interim report.
Blinken wrote that during his September 3 phone call with McCaul, he told him he would be traveling on the two dates that McCaul had publicly scheduled for his hearing. Blinken added that the events this week at the United Nations General Assembly have been scheduled for months.
“On September 24 alone — the day you have asked me to appear — I will: represent the United States at the UN Security Council debate on the war in Ukraine, during which I will debate the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers; host alongside the President a leader-level meeting of the United States-led Global Coalition on Synthetic Drugs to fight the production and trafficking of fentanyl; accompany President Biden for his address to the General Assembly and his bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General Guterres; meet with foreign ministers in the Partnership for Global Infrastructure to secure commitments for the Lobito Corridor in Africa; and conduct several other bilateral and multilateral engagements,” Blinken detailed.
Blinken reiterated that the State Department has “expended thousands of hours” working to get the committee what it has asked for as part of its investigation into the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, including documents, briefings and interviews.
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