House Republicans Threaten Blinken With Contempt Over Skipped Afghanistan Hearing

House Republicans are moving to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress over the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee subpoenaed Blinken to testify in front of lawmakers on Tuesday over the exit. The committee recently released a lengthy report on its investigation into the withdrawal which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, dozens of Afghans, and the loss of billions of dollars worth of military hardware.

Committee chairman Michael McCaul of Texas expected Blinken to skip the hearing. Republicans prepared a contempt resolution in advance that said the committee had already delayed Blinken’s testimony once to accommodate the secretary’s schedule.

“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. The secretary’s willful indifference – willful indifference – has brought us to this moment,” McCaul said in remarks during Tuesday’s hearing.

“I take no joy in moving forward to hold the secretary of state in contempt of Congress. It’s an extraordinary act,” he said. Blinken’s failure to testify “violates Article 1 of the Constitution, it violates our ability to perform oversight, and it violates our ability to legislate on a hugely important issue – perhaps the most important issue that occurred during this presidency,” he added.

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Blinken expressed over the weekend that he is “profoundly disappointed” in the efforts to hold him in contempt.

“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, according to CNN.

Republicans on the committee released a report earlier this month faulting the Biden administration for pushing the withdrawal forward despite rising costs, risk, and chaos in Afghanistan.

“The Biden-Harris administration was determined to withdraw from Afghanistan, with or without the Doha Agreement and no matter the cost. Accordingly, they ignored the conditions in the Doha Agreement, pleas of the Afghan government, and the objections by our NATO allies, deciding to unilaterally withdraw from the country,” the report says.

“The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground,” it continued.