House panel weighs holding Blinken in contempt over Afghanistan withdrawal testimony

Washington — The Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee is expected to recommend that Secretary of State Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress amid a standoff over the top diplomat’s testimony about the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, subpoenaed Blinken earlier this month for his testimony, threatening to hold him in contempt if he did not appear before the panel on Sept. 19. In the letter subpoenaing Blinken, McCaul said Blinken’s appearance was important as the committee considers “potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal.” 

On Tuesday, McCaul gaveled a hearing in, stating that its purpose was to “hear directly from Secretary Blinken” and get his assessment of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. After a long pause, McCaul said, “unfortunately our witness, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not present today,” before adjourning the hearing and noting his intention to proceed with a markup to “begin the formal process of holding the secretary in contempt of Congress.”

Blinken’s testimony

The State Department said it had proposed other dates for Blinken’s testimony, citing his travel overseas as the U.S. tries to secure a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. It also offered to have Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell appear before the committee if the panel was set on last week’s date. 

“We continue to not understand why the committee has chosen to take this step,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Sept. 17, calling the markup an “extraordinarily unnecessary and unproductive step.” 

Miller noted that Blinken had answered questions about Afghanistan in his 14 appearances before Congress, including the four times he has testified to McCaul’s committee.

Committee spokesperson Emily Cassil fired back in a statement that accused the State Department of consistently engaging “in obfuscation and outright avoidance.”

McCaul delayed the panel’s meeting by five days and issued another subpoena for Blinken to appear then. 

“If Secretary Blinken fails to appear, the chairman will proceed instead with a full committee markup of a report recommending the U.S. House of Representatives find Secretary Blinken in contempt of Congress for violating a duly issued subpoena,” a notice said. 

Though Blinken is in the U.S., he is attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York City and meeting with world leaders, Miller said last week. 

“Once again, they have unilaterally selected a date,” Miller said, adding that the committee was told in advance of Blinken’s schedule. “It very much does not appear that they’re acting in good faith.” 

Beginning next week, Congress is scheduled to be in recess through October, providing limited days for Blinken to testify unless committee members return to Washington during the break.

Even if the measure advances out of the committee, the full House would still need to vote to refer it to the Justice Department for prosecution, and it’s highly unlikely that Blinken would be prosecuted by the Biden administration. 

The Afghanistan withdrawal

The committee’s Republican majority released a report earlier this month that detailed the panel’s yearslong investigation into the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and accused the Biden administration of misleading the public about the pullout. 

The lengthy report is highly critical of President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, accusing the president and his administration of ignoring repeated warnings from military officials, national security advisers and U.S. allies about the risks associated with drawing American forces down to zero because he “prioritized politics and his personal legacy over America’s national security interests.” 

Thirteen U.S. service members died in a suicide bombing in Kabul during the evacuation. 

“This was one of the deadliest days in Afghanistan. It could have been prevented if the State Department did its job by law and executed the plan of evacuation,” McCaul said in a Sept. 8 interview on “Face the Nation.” 

During its investigation, the committee conducted 18 transcribed interviews with Biden administration officials and received more than 20,000 pages of documents from the State Department, some of which were obtained through subpoenas. Blinken was not among those who testified.

Democratic members of the Foreign Affairs Committee put out their own report that defended the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal amid swiftly changing conditions. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the committee’s top Democrat, argued that the Republican majority took “particular pains to avoid facts involving former President Donald Trump.” 

The Trump administration struck a deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces from the country by May 2021. The deal, known as the Doha Agreement, laid out a series of conditions to be fulfilled by the Taliban before U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan. 

Last year, the State Department released a partially declassified report that faulted both the Trump and Biden administrations for “insufficient” planning surrounding the withdrawal.