House Republicans move to hold Blinken in contempt over Afghanistan testimony

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.

“Let the record reflect that for four months, I patiently asked for and waited on his availability in September,” McCaul said in his opening statement. “But instead of working with me, Secretary Blinken made false promises and accused me of politicizing this important issue.”

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.

As all secretaries of state have in the past, Blinken will spend the entire week in New York holding dozens of meeting with his counterparts on a variety of issues but this year with a focus on the Mideast situation and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Democrats on the committee blasted Republicans' contempt efforts as purely partisan.

“It’s not difficult for the American people to see this for what it is: political theater,” New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the committee, said in an opening statement. “Another attempt to put another senior Biden administration official name into negative headlines.”

Last week, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller accused McCaul and the committee of repeatedly calling for hearings on days they knew Blinken would be unavailable to appear.

McCaul has repeatedly said the department has been “disingenuous” because it had declined repeated requests to pick a date in September for Blinken to testify. “If we are forced to hold Secretary Blinken in contempt of Congress, he has no one to blame but himself,” he said in a statement last week.

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly brought up the disastrous exit from Afghanistan in the campaign, trying to link it to his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Several watchdog reviews and a more than 18-month investigation by House Republicans have failed to pinpoint an instance where the Harris had a particular impact on decision-making on the withdrawal.

Blinken has testified about Afghanistan 14 times, including four times before McCaul’s committee.

Miller said Blinken was willing to testify again if a mutually convenient time could be arranged but noted that Congress will be in recess from the end of this week until after the November election.

Earlier this month, House Republicans issued a scathing report on their investigation into the withdrawal, blaming the disastrous end of America’s longest war on the Biden administration while minimizing Trump’s role.

The partisan review laid out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, which allowed the Taliban to conquer the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on Aug. 30, 2021. The chaotic exit left behind many American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, female activists and others at risk from the Taliban.