Turn over Afghanistan withdrawal memo or we’ll sue, Republicans warn Blinken

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul threatens to contempt Secretary of State Antony Blinken before Congress if he does not hand over a key document on Thursday regarding the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan as Republican oversight of the deadly exit increases .

In August 2021, 13 US military personnel and 170 others were killed near Hamid Karzai International Airport after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device. In addition, thousands of US citizens and allies of the United States who were unable to evacuate quickly remained in the country after the Taliban quickly took the capital, Kabul.

The committee led by McCaul is looking into the Biden administration’s role in the deadly pullout, which he previously called a “stunning failure” of leadership.

McCaul is specifically seeking a classified telegram of dissent that US State Department officials sent ahead of the Taliban takeover on July 13, 2021. The telegram warned of a “deteriorating security situation” and urged the immediate evacuation of allies, a warning that the Biden administration was not listening, Republicans say.

In a letter to Blinken Friday obtained by DailyMail.com, McCaul, R-Texas, writes that as part of the commission’s investigation, Blinken must hand over the cable in its entirety by May 11 or face immediate legal action against him. started.

His request comes after a subpoena was issued to Blinken on March 28 requesting the “divergent cable,” along with other documents and communications from the Biden administration regarding the pullout.

McCaul writes in the letter that the information that the State Department has transferred to the committee is “insufficient.”

The department issued a classified briefing on April 27, which Republicans on the committee said fell short of many of the demands they had made.

A spokesman for the State Department denounced McCaul’s move in a statement.

“It is regrettable that despite receiving a secret briefing on the dissent cable and a written summary, the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues to pursue this unnecessary and unproductive action,” spokesman Vedant Patel said.

“Nevertheless, we will continue to respond to appropriate oversight questions and provide Congress with the information it needs to do its job, while protecting the ability of State Department employees to do theirs,” Patel continued in a statement. .

However, McCaul writes in the letter that the information that the State Department passed on to the committee has been “insufficient.”

“The Department provided the committee with about a one-page summary of the dissent cable, as well as a summary of the official response from the Department of just under one page,” McCaul says.

“The ministry has confirmed that the original cable dissent was a total of four pages long, meaning the summary was 75% less than the original cable.”

As a result, the agency “is now in breach of its legal obligation to provide these documents and must do so immediately.”

He gave Blinken a deadline of May 11 at 6 p.m. ET to comply, or the committee will proceed in contempt of congressional proceeding, he writes.

“As noted above, if the Department fails to meet its legal obligation, the Committee is prepared to take any necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating civil enforcement proceedings. ‘

If Blinken is held in contempt of Congress, President Biden’s Justice Department would have the option to proceed with legal proceedings.

The DOJ is unlikely to take action against Blinken, as the department has refused to prosecute other cabinet-level secretaries who have been similarly scorned — including Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder .

Hundreds of people gathered at a US Air Force C-17 transport plane at the edge of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021

McCaul pushed back the deadline for Blinken to comply with the subpoena several times.

The first deadline was April 1, then April 21, May 1 and now May 11 after discussions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The chairman also accused the Biden administration of “misleading the public” into releasing several “summary” documents related to the withdrawal.

On April 6, the Biden administration released a 12-page document that it represented as an unclassified “summary” of the administration’s post-action assessments of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and answered questions from the media on this topic in a press conference. However, this summary misrepresented the conclusions contained in the source material it purported to summarize,” the letter states.

As the committee explained in a letter dated April 25, the Department’s classified After-Action Review specifically contradicted inaccurate and misleading claims in the White House summary and press briefing that there was no “chaos” during the emergency evacuation. at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and that the administration bore no great responsibility for the failure of the withdrawal.”

“Accordingly, the committee has reason to be highly skeptical of summary documents prepared by the IRS, especially when it does not have access to the original source material to conduct an independent verification.”