Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul said he still intends to haul in Antony Blinken on the Afghanistan withdrawal even after his sprawling report was completed, and will hold him in contempt of Congress if he does not comply. 

‘This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions,’ the Texas Republican told reporters on Monday. ‘This is a disgrace. I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people.’

‘Secretary Blinken refuses to take one day out of this month to come before the [Gold Star] families.’ 

McCaul’s comments came on the heels of a 350-page report he released Monday on the withdrawal that the committee worked on for much of the past nearly two years of the Republican majority. 

It laid much blame on the State Department and detailed how State officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.  

McCaul subpoenaed Blinken last week, saying he must appear before the committee by Sept. 19. 

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel shrugged off the committee’s threats. 

‘The majority isn’t truly interested in legislating on Afghanistan policy. If they were, they would have sought to speak to the secretary long ago,’ he told reporters Monday. 

‘They would have sought to speak to him to get his input as they make this report,’ he said. ‘Instead they waited until the report was completely finished to come back to us.’ 

In May, McCaul asked Blinken to appear at a hearing in September on the committee’s report on its investigation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The State Department failed on several occasions to provide a date for Blinken to appear before lawmakers, McCaul said.

But the State Department said Monday Blinken had testified before House and Senate committees 14 times on the withdrawal, including four times before the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

McCaul also hinted that he believes there should still be a small contingency of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

‘We cannot see now into Afghanistan except through over the horizon, which doesn’t work. We can’t see Russia, China and Iran, either, because of this tragic failure of foreign policy,’ he told reporters.

‘We can’t see all of ISIS gathering in the Korazhan region of Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, making their way to the United States of America. That is what they did to us,’ the chairman went on. 

‘They embolden the unholy alliance of Putin, Xi, the Ayatollah and Kim Jong Un,’ he said, referring to the leaders of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. 

The Biden administration has long claimed the president’s hands were tied by the Doha agreement negotiated under President Trump that laid out a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. But the new report detailed how the Taliban had failed to hold up their end of the deal, absolving the U.S. of any obligation to adhere to it. 

‘​Biden, for his part, faced a stark choice when he came to office, abide by the flawed agreement and end America’s longest war, or blow up the deal, extend the war, and see a much smaller contingent of American troops back in combat with the Taliban,’ White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. 

‘He chose the former and was able to buy additional time to prepare for that withdrawal all the way into the summer. And we, as a nation are safer for it. Any and every discussion about what happened in Afghanistan has to start right there. Sadly, the report does not dwell on it.’

The damning report claims that while US military personnel were drawing down their footprint in the nation, the State Department was growing theirs. 

And according to the report, U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson was on vacation the last week of July and the first week of August 2021. He promptly hightailed it out of the country on a flight ahead of his staff in mid-August. He allegedly had COVID-19 at the time and forced a foreign service officer to take his COVID test so he could get on the plane.

Patel defended Wilson, but did not deny the allegations. 

‘I’m just not going to get into a tit-for-tat with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but what I can say is that it is not my understanding that he was on vacation at the beginning of August. Beyond that, I will just echo what I said previously about Ambassador Wilson, that this is an esteemed individual, a decorated Foreign Service officer.’ 

He claimed the GOP-led report chose ‘scandal over substance’ and called it a ‘collection of cherry-picked comments… designed to paint an inaccurate picture of this administration’s efforts. 

He claimed the withdrawal was carried out in a way that was consistent with department policy. ‘The drawdown in Kabul was conducted in a manner which is consistent with our departments and our country’s standards and protocols when faced in those circumstances.’ 

He said he did not have a headcount on how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, but touted the more than 18,000 Afghan special immigrant visas (SIVs) for the U.S.’s Afghan allies, such as interpreters, that were processed in 2023.

House GOP leaders’ plan to avert a partial government shutdown at the end of this month could be derailed by mounting opposition from fiscal hawks within their own party.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rolled out legislation late last week to extend the current year’s government funding levels through March via a continuing resolution (CR) to give congressional negotiators more time to work out the next fiscal year’s spending priorities.

It’s attached to a Republican-led bill for a proof of citizenship requirement in the voter registration process.

At least five House Republicans have come out against the plan as of Monday evening, meaning Johnson almost certainly needs Democratic votes to get it passed.

Despite former President Donald Trump blessing the plan, Johnson can afford little room for error with a razor-thin House majority of just four votes.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told reporters on Monday that he and Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., are all opposed.

‘I’ve made it clear…that I’ll be a no on the CR,’ Mills said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, this is nothing more than messaging.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Burchett to confirm his stance.

Massie told Fox News Digital last week that he believed it was a mistake for Johnson not to push for a longer CR. Under a bipartisan deal passed last year, a CR extending past April 30 would automatically trigger a 1% government funding cut.

‘Speaker Johnson has this teed up in front of him. The 1% cut is in law. All we need is a one-year CR to queue it up. When the April 30 deadline arrives, he could even trade the cut for something. But he’s afraid to even create a spending cut deadline,’ Massie said.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who is retiring at the end of this year, also told Fox News Digital last week that he is against the bill.

Meanwhile, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., told Punchbowl News he was against the CR over concerns within the defense community about the impact of an extension into the new year. 

It has spurred concern and confusion among House Republicans just hours after they returned from a six-week recess.

‘I think we ought to have some conversation with those five,’ Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., a conservative Republican, told Fox News Digital of the plan’s opponents. ‘And I think those five ought to bear responsibility for blowing some opportunities that are right at hand.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., a national security hawk in a swing district, said he wanted to hear whether Johnson had a backup plan.

‘I think it’s a good first position. I think, you know, the question is, [what is] position two? Position three look like?’ Garcia told reporters. ‘We don’t need to share that with you guys in the media right now. But we should internally [have an] understanding of the strategy. And I think… hopefully we get more clarity on that.’

Lawmakers anticipate a Wednesday vote on the plan, but enough opposition could force House GOP leaders to scuttle the vote.

It’s possible that some Democrats will vote for the bill. Five House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act earlier this year.

But Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have both come out in opposition to the plan. The White House also announced Monday that President Biden would veto the bill if it got to his desk.

Johnson told reporters earlier in the day that he did not have a fallback plan in case of failure.

‘There is no fallback position. This is a righteous fight. This is what the American people demand and deserve,’ Johnson said.

It’s a position that is likely to worry moderates who worry the political fallout from a government shutdown weeks before Election Day could cost them their seats.

‘If we shut down, we lose,’ one Republican told Fox News Digital last week.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson for comment on the ‘no’ votes.

Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

The White House pushed back on a report released Sunday by Republican lawmakers criticizing President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, calling the report partisan and offering ‘little or nothing new.’

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, released a GOP-led report disputing Biden’s claims that his hands were tied to the agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021. It also said State Department officials had no plan for helping Americans and allies out while there were still troops in the region to protect them.

McCaul’s report also noted the failure to adequately respond to terror threats ahead of the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban likely had access after the withdrawal to $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons, and up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government.

On Monday, White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby defended Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan during a White House briefing.

Kirby told reporters the GOP report comes two years after their first report, adding, ‘This one says little or nothing new.’

He then provided a rundown of what he called ‘actual facts’ that he considered important.

‘First, on the very day this administration took office, the Taliban was in the strongest position it had been in years. The Afghan government, the weakest,’ Kirby said. ‘The Trump administration cut a deal called the Doha Agreement that mandated a complete U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and yes, that included Bagram Air Base, by the end of May 2021.’

Part of the deal was that 5,000 Taliban fighters would be released from prison, and in return, the Taliban agreed not to attack U.S. troops, he explained.

Kirby referred to testimony from former commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, who said the Doha deal had a really pernicious effect on the Afghan government, and it demoralized them.

‘They knew right then and there that America was on its way out,’ Kirby said. ‘Indeed, in October of 2020, then-President Trump ordered his military to rush the exit from Afghanistan and have everybody leave by Christmas of that year.

‘President Biden, for his part, faced a stark choice when he came to office: Abide by the flawed agreement and end America’s longest war, or blow up the deal, extend the war, and see a much smaller contingent of American troops back in combat with the Taliban,’ Kirby added. ‘He chose the former and was able to buy additional time to prepare for that withdrawal all the way into summer, and we, as a nation, are safer for it.’

Kirby then brought up what he called ‘falsehoods’ from the report. The first issue he found was that there was in fact planning for evacuations beginning in the spring of 2021.

Kirby said the Department of Defense proposed additional military units in the region so when a decision was reached to evacuate, they would be poised to respond.

He also said there was no point in securing Bagram Air Base during the evacuation because it would have required thousands of additional U.S. troops. It would also have required a ‘dangerous trek by evacuees’ across Taliban territory, making the evacuation even more difficult.

Kirby also mentioned that there was no handover of U.S. equipment to the Taliban.

‘That equipment had been provided to Afghan security forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of two decades of war,’ he said. ‘That equipment was left by those Afghan forces when they surrendered or stopped fighting.’

Finally, Kirby told reporters the Biden administration did not deceive, lie or fail to be transparent during, or after the withdrawal.

‘We did the best we could every day to keep the American people informed of what was happening,’ he said. ‘We conducted our own after-action reports and shared those, too, with the public.’

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.

A new ad from the Harris campaign slamming Donald Trump as ‘dangerous’ will feature comments from several former top Trump officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence.

The ad, titled, ‘The Best People,’ seeks to bring old criticisms targeted at Trump — from former top officials he once hired — back into the spotlight. It will be aired the same day as ABC’s presidential debate Tuesday, and is scheduled to play on multiple Fox affiliates across the country.

‘Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,’ Pence said in August 2023. It came after an indictment was handed down against former president Trump for allegedly interfering with the 2020 election results. The Harris campaign utilized the remark in its new ad, as well as a second remark made by Pence on Fox News roughly six months ago, saying he would not be endorsing Trump for president. 

‘Take it from the people who knew him best,’ a narrator says in the advertisement.

But despite the former vice president’s cameo appearance slamming Trump in the new ad, his decision not to endorse Trump does not equate to an endorsement for Kamala Harris, a spokesperson for Advancing American Freedom, a nonprofit recently founded by Pence, suggested. The spokesperson pointed Fox News Digital to a particular comment from Pence made last month in Atlanta, Georgia, during which Pence stated adamantly: ‘I could never vote for Kamala Harris as President of the United States, or Tim Walz her running mate.’

The new Harris campaign advertisement also included year-old remarks from the former defense secretary under Trump, Mark Esper.

Esper’s comments utilized in the ad came from a June 2023 CNN interview, during which he was asked whether Trump ‘can be trusted’ with the nation’s secrets in light of scrutiny over how he handled classified documents after leaving the White House. ‘No,’ Esper says. ‘It’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our national security at risk.’

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Esper to see if he was aware of his appearance in the ad, but did not hear back.   

Meanwhile, Trump former national security adviser John Bolton and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Trump, Gen. Mark Milley, also appeared in the new ad from the Harris campaign. Bolton and Milley both have a track record of being outspoken critics of Trump.

‘Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage,’ remarks from Bolton in the ad. ‘The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump.’ 

Bolton’s remarks highlighted in the advertisement came from an interview on CNN in October 2023 and last week, respectively.

The ad concluded with remarks from Milley made during his final address as the nation’s top military general in September 2023. ‘We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant, or a dictator,’ Milley says in the ad. ‘And we don’t take an oath to a wannabee dictator.’

Fox News Digital reached out for comment to representatives for Bolton and Milley, but did not receive a response by publication time.  

Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, slammed the new ad as an attempt to ‘distract’ from how ‘dangerously liberal [Harris] is.’ 

‘The Kamala campaign is using the words of a few disgruntled losers because they are losing in the polls and trying to distract from the fact that Kamala is losing support from moderate Democrats who realize how dangerously liberal she is,’ Leavitt said on Monday.

Former President Obama’s half brother is backing former President Trump for president and spoke to Fox News Digital about why he left the Democratic Party and why he believes Trump is ‘going to win’ in November.

‘I’m supporting President Trump. I’ve been a supporter, a supporter since 2016. I like him,’ Malik Obama told Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘I like the way he comes across. I like his demeanor. I like his straightforwardness. And I think he’s good for the country. And, he put the country back on course. Yes. I’m a Republican, so he’s my nominee.’

Malik and Barack are both sons of Barack Hussein Obama Sr. and Malik was the best man at Barack’s 1992 wedding, although the two have grown estranged since. 

‘The main thing is making America strong, you know, in the eyes of the world. And Trump is a strong person. He’s known for his mettle, his strength and I like that,’ Malik said. ‘He’s a no-nonsense guy. He’s a businessman, so he knows, you know, how to run a big organization. And the Democrats, I fell out with them because they’re hypocrites.’

Obama explained that the hypocrisy that made him leave the Democratic Party involved the way Democrats have treated Trump and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

‘They’ve been treating Mr. President Trump horribly,’ Obama said. ‘I’m not seeing anything like that in my life. You know, they’re going after him for, you know, going through tooth and nail. But using the judiciary to try to lock him up and keep him off the ballot, and I’ve not seen anything like that in my life. So the way they’re treating a former president of the United States of America is despicable to me.’

Obama said that in 2024 he believes ‘Democrats will be there doing the same thing they did in 2016.’

‘They did it with Hillary, Hillary Clinton, and they were lying. And, you know, they’re just hypocrites. And, you know, they’re not straightforward and OK, I was a Democrat at that time until, you know, they started lying and, about the emails and I saw through, you know, they’re, they’re trying to put Hillary Clinton through, by devious means,’ he continued. ‘And then Trump came out and called them out. He called them out straight to their face. And I like that. And a light bulb just came on from my head. And I just said, ‘Yeah, this is it.’ So I’ve been a big Trump follower since then.’

Obama also took issue with President Biden and the way his party handled transitioning to VP Harris.

‘Then you had Joe Biden, old man,’ Obama said. ‘He can’t even find the door even if you showed him, and he holds on until the last minute and he is the nominee. And all of a sudden, they drop off and they put Kamala Harris. Come on Harris. She’s like a joke. I see the way she behaves and everything, and I don’t think that she’s the right person. Maybe they should have decided to put Michelle Obama instead.’

Obama said his half brother Barack Obama and Harris are ‘cut from the same cloth’ and ‘wishy-washy,’ especially when it comes to abortion and immigration.

Going around, fooling around with biology and things like that,’ Obama said. ‘I think that is evil. But they stand for that. And I think that is abominable, you know, that they would go ahead and support such things. She’s talking about freedom of, what is it? What she’s talking about reproductive freedom and reproductive freedom is abortion. 

‘You know, giving somebody the right to go ahead and kill a baby,’ he added. ‘I don’t agree with it. I find it really abominable that they would do such a thing.’

‘Even the border issue with the immigration and illegal immigrants coming into the United States. It took me forever to get my children [through] and I came in legally to the United States. I had a green card. The papers were put through, and I went through the process, and I was a legal resident for a long time until I decided to become a U.S. citizen. And that also was a process. You have to go and file and apply and do the things you’re supposed to do,’ Obama continued. ‘And then, my children are now in the USA and had to go put in the papers for them and then legally. And then you got people coming in, illegals and being allowed to vote and things like that. And, and that to me is, you know, that’s a no no. I can’t stand for that. And I can’t support that kind of policy.’

Obama’s half-brother went on to tell Fox News Digital that he believes former President Obama is ‘fake’ and ‘did zilch’ for his family and that’s part of the reason Trump is so appealing in comparison, because he ‘doesn’t beat around the bush.’

‘Yeah, we’re going to win,’ Obama said about what his message to Trump would be. 

‘I just say President Trump, you’re going to win in November 2024,’ he concluded. ‘You’re going to win. And I think you’re going to win by a landslide because all the hype that’s going on with Kamala and she can’t even interview, and I’m waiting for tomorrow, and everybody’s going to see that she can’t interview. All she does is laugh and move.’

As former President Trump faces backlash from Democrats over ties to the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Project 2025,’ the Biden-Harris administration has been working hand in hand with a prominent liberal think tank through a revolving door of employees working to turn progressive policy recommendations into executive actions and legislation, which could come back to haunt the Harris campaign.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has been labeled the ‘most influential’ think tank in the Biden era, while the group publicly boasts that it has turned at least 10 policy recommendations into ‘executive action and policy legislation.’

Patrick Gaspard, the current president of CAP, has visited the Biden White House at least 20 times between December 2021 and January 2024, which included five solo meetings with high-ranking Biden officials.

CAP’s ties to the Biden White House go even deeper than Gaspard, as at least 60 alumni from the think tank have joined the administration, including Neera Tanden, who previously served as president of CAP and has served in multiple roles in the Biden administration, including senior adviser and staff secretary. 

She was promoted in May 2023 to the ‘Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor’ titles, replacing Susan Rice, according to a White House press release.

President Biden also hired CAP founder and chairman John Podesta as a senior White House clean energy czar in 2022. Podesta was tasked with overseeing roughly $370 billion in climate spending appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman was then tapped by Biden earlier this year to serve as his top climate diplomat after John Kerry stepped down to help with campaign efforts, which received backlash from top Republicans due to concerns over his ties to China dating back to his CAP days. 

Fox News Digital first reported on his connection to top CCP official Tung Chee-hwa, who he repeatedly referred to as his ‘friend’ and took several calls from.

CAP’s influence within the Biden White House began months before he entered office. In late 2020, a half dozen of the group’s employees joined Biden’s transition team in the Treasury, Federal Reserve, Labor Department, Interior Department, National Security Council and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. 

CAP’s organization appears primed to push a policy agenda on several key issues on the progressive wish list if the Biden administration, now led by Vice President Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket, were to continue into a second term. 

CAP has voiced support for both setting term limits for Supreme Court justices and packing the court, which are two efforts being pushed by Demand Justice, a left-wing dark money group that Harris’ senior campaign adviser Brian Fallon co-founded and left less than a year ago. 

The liberal think tank has signed onto multiple letters pushed by Demand Justice, which was reportedly planning a $10 million offensive against conservative Supreme Court justices this year ‘on a range of activities, from conducting opposition research on potential Supreme Court picks to advocating for ethics reforms for the high court,’ Politico reported.

‘The Supreme Court has taken off its mask this term by creating unconstitutional de facto immunity for future presidents who act illegally and by gutting the ability of public agencies and Congress to protect Americans from abuse by right-wing special interests,’ CAP states on its website.

CAP has pushed a variety of other left-wing efforts, which include censoring speech it believes to be ‘misinformation,’ taxpayer-funded student loan bailouts, taxpayer-funded reparations, DEI mandates, federal taxpayer funds for abortion by eliminating the Hyde Amendment, and phasing out gas-powered cars.

‘With skyrocketing profits and expanding domestic manufacturing, U.S. automakers have everything they need to help the country switch from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to electric,’ CAP said in a 2024 post, despite multiple reports highlighting how consumers have complained about the cost and lack of charging stations.

CAP’s influence on Biden also spread to his messaging on the campaign trail before he dropped out of the race. In 2022, the Washington Post reported that Biden’s move to label Trump as ‘ultra MAGA’ was the result of a six-month research project from the CAP Action Fund that was headed by his top aide Anita Dunn, who has performed consulting work for CAP.

CAP Action Fund’s president, Navin Nayak, has visited the Biden White House at least a couple dozen times, a Fox News Digital review of White House visitor logs found.

Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was on the CAP Action Fund board for several years, has also repeatedly praised their efforts on his X account.

VP Harris has worked with the Center for American Progress dating back to her time as California attorney general, when she joined the group for a press conference via telephone. She has also participated in several events hosted by the liberal think tank and her sister, Maya Harris, joined as a senior fellow, according to a 2013 press release. 

Tanden said, ‘Maya has worked tirelessly in many different arenas to ensure that the United States is a more inclusive country and that all Americans can live up to their potential’ and looked forward to her involvement with CAP.

Despite its extensive connections to the Biden White House, CAP blasts Project 2025 on its website as a ‘far-right assault on America’ that it claims will ‘serve as a road map’ for a ‘far-right presidential administration.’

A CAP spokesperson dismissed the Heritage Foundation as ‘no longer a think tank’ in a statement to Fox News Digital on Sunday.

‘When it comes to the Heritage Foundation and their work, one needs to look no further than yesterday’s New York Times story exposing Heritage creating fake digital content and pushing lies about election integrity,’ the spokesperson said. ‘Couple that with Heritage’s embrace of authoritarianism and their president threatening to launch a potentially violent ‘second American Revolution’ if it doesn’t get its way, and I think it’s safe to say that Heritage is on an island of its own. This is no longer a think tank.’

As a presidential candidate, Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump over Project 2025 as recently as last week when she ran an ad linking Trump to the project.

While Project 2025 is staffed with several high-level individuals who have previously worked with Trump, he has strongly denied having any direct role with the group.

A Project 2025 spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Sunday that ‘Project 2025 does not speak for Donald Trump or his campaign’ and is ‘continuing our decades-long legacy of preparing policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative President.’

‘The Heritage Foundation has been producing its Mandate for Leadership since 1980, and President Reagan handed out copies of the book to his cabinet at their first meeting,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘The Left always prepares recommendations for liberal presidents, and they are simply upset that two can play this game.’

‘The only reason that the Left is in a tailspin over Project 2025 is that it has winning ideas that the American people support, while their own recommendations, which are currently destroying our country, are wildly unpopular,’ the spokesperson added.

Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez told Fox News Digital earlier this year that ‘Agenda 47 and President Trump’s RNC Platform are the only policies endorsed by President Trump for a second term.’

‘Team Biden and the DNC are LYING and fear-mongering because they have NOTHING else to offer the American people,’ she added. ‘Remember this is the same group that lied to Americans and hid Joe Biden’s cognitive decline all these years.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden White House and Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall and Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report

The State Department stood by the frenzied 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal in a new statement after House Foreign Affairs Republicans released a scathing 350-page report detailing dysfunction and a lack of planning leading up to the pullout. 

Republicans have ‘issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture,’ according to a statement put out by a State Department spokesperson. 

The report, led by Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Donald Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and laid much blame on a lack of planning by the State Department for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them. 

‘There are valid and important criticisms of the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan and how it concluded, which is why the Department has remained focused on evolving and growing from this moment, learning important lessons and making sustainable changes to crisis operations,’ the State Department statement said. 

‘The Department stands ready to work alongside any Member who expresses serious interest in finding legislative and administrative solutions. However, we will not stand by silently as the Department and its workforce are used to further partisan agendas.’

The department said the idea that they lacked a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) plan to close operations in Afghanistan is ‘one of the most persistent misunderstandings.’ 

The State Department did not initiate a NEO to begin removing U.S. personnel and American allies until Aug. 14, as the Taliban marched into Kabul, and one day before President Ashraf Ghani fled his country in a helicopter full of cash. 

There were not enough troops present to begin the NEO until Aug. 19.

The report lays blame on former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson, who instead of shrinking, increased the embassy’s presence as the security situation deteriorated – despite warnings from military officials. 

The statement noted that the U.S. had intended for the embassy in Kabul to remain open after the evacuation – ‘a decision Congress broadly supported.’ 

‘While U.S. military forces would end combat operations, Department personnel planned to operate out of Embassy Kabul to assist Americans and Afghan allies, coordinate diplomatic and development activity and investments, and help protect and advance U.S. national security interests after August 2021.’ 

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul closed officially on Aug. 31, 2021 and has not reopened since. 

The statement said that ‘executing the NEO before [August 15] would have signaled to the people of Afghanistan the U.S. had lost all confidence in the then-Afghan government and precipitated the very collapse we sought to avoid.’

Still, the department admitted it had no idea Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban so quickly. ‘Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict the government forces in Kabul would collapse while U.S. forces remained.’

McCaul’s investigation found the State Department had been warned repeatedly about the Taliban takeover but refused to draw down its presence in the region. 

The department said it had been recommending Americans living in Afghanistan leave since March of that year.

‘In total, between March and August, the Department sent 19 unique messages with warnings to Americans living in Afghanistan to leave, as well as offers of help, including financial assistance to pay for plane tickets.’

Despite such efforts, nearly 6,000 Americans remained as Kabul fell, mostly dual citizens, prompting an evacuation effort of ‘unprecedented scope and scale.’ 

McCaul contends that the State Department left some 1,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but the State Department said it evacuated ‘almost all’ Americans by Aug. 31. 

The department said it helped another 500 U.S. citizens evacuate between Aug. 31 and the end of the year – and noted that it helped some 120,000 Americans, Afghans and third-country nationals flee the country in the last two weeks of August 2021. 

It also noted that when President Biden took office in January 2021, the special immigrant visa (SIV) program to offer visas to foreign nationals who assist U.S. missions abroad had a backlog of 14,000 and ‘there had not been a single SIV applicant interview in Kabul in nine months, going back to March 2020.’