House Democrats press Blinken for more details about Afghan evacuation effort
CNN
An ideologically diverse group of Democrats is pushing Secretary of State Antony Blinken to take specific steps toward helping thousands of individuals still seeking to leave Afghanistan, underscoring the widespread concern still lingering in Congress over the evacuation effort from the war-torn country.
In a letter provided to CNN, more than three dozen House Democrats -- ranging from some of the most liberal to some of the most moderate -- also want additional information about the more than 116,000 people who were evacuated from the country. "Our immediate goal is ensuring the safety of the thousands of individuals that have contacted our offices seeking to leave Afghanistan, starting first with American citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents as well as SIVs, refugees eligible for P-2 and P-1 status, and other designated Afghans," the letter states.Over and over at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Democratic senators confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about controversial comments they said he had made in the past. And over and over, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services either denied having said those things or said he wasn’t sure he had said them.
Investigators are intensifying their search into what caused the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, with recovery crews still working to pull wreckage from the Potomac River and initial concerns already raised about the path of at least one of the aircraft.