Republicans Move To Hold Antony Blinken In Contempt Over Afghanistan Testimony
HuffPost
Blinken has testified about Afghanistan 14 times, including four times before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are moving Tuesday to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress after a contentious back-and-forth with the Cabinet secretary over an appearance to testify on the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Blinken, in a letter to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said that he was “profoundly disappointed” in the chairman’s decision to advance contempt proceedings and urged him to find a resolution in “good faith.”
“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 Sunday letter.
The contempt of Congress charge is the latest in a series of moves by McCaul and other House Republicans over the past 18 months to hold the Biden administration accountable for what they have called a “stunning failure of leadership” after Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital far more rapidly than U.S. intelligence had foreseen as American forces pulled out in 2021.
McCaul had first set a hearing for Blinken to testify last Thursday, while the secretary was in Egypt and France. He then changed the date to Tuesday, when Blinken was at the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York and attending President Joe Biden ’s speech at the time of the hearing.
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