House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) made good on his repeated threats and signed a subpoena for the State Department to furnish the Kabul dissent cable, his office announced Monday.
McCaul had issued numerous subpoena warnings to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding a July 13, 2021, cable signed by over two dozen U.S. Embassy members in Kabul criticizing the preparations for the withdrawal from Afghanistan that soon devolved into chaos. He had given Blinken until the close of business Monday to comply.
‘BULLS***’ EXCUSES: MCCAUL THREATENS TO SUBPOENA STATE DEPARTMENT OVER KABUL DISSENT CABLE
“We have made multiple good faith attempts to find common ground so we could see this critical piece of information. Unfortunately, Secretary Blinken has refused to provide the Dissent Cable and his response to the cable, forcing me to issue my first subpoena as chairman of this committee,” McCaul said in a statement.
The cable warned that the Biden administration was not adequately prepared to withdraw troops from the war-torn nation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Foreign Affairs Committee has been examining the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that saw the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and multiple Afghan civilians, as well as the Taliban takeover.
“The American people deserve answers as to how this tragedy unfolded, and why 13 U.S. servicemembers lost their lives. We expect the State Department to follow the law and comply with this subpoena in good faith,” McCaul added.
McCaul’s predecessor, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), now the ranking member on the panel, requested the cable in August 2021, and McCaul re-upped that in January this year. Blinken revealed in September 2021 that the cable laid out “real concerns” about Afghanistan’s government.
Notably, the State Department’s director of policy planning, Salman Ahmed, sounded the alarms about the potential for the Taliban to roar back to power and urged the department to ramp up its evacuation planning and special immigrant visa applications to safeguard Afghans who aided the United States, per the Wall Street Journal.
McCaul pressed Blinken during a contentious hearing last week. Blinken alluded to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s refusal to turn over a dissent cable to Congress as a precedent.
“We are working to provide all the information that this committee is looking for,” Blinken said in a hearing last week. “This tradition of having a dissent cable is one that is cherished in the department and goes back decades.”
During that hearing, McCaul countered the department’s claims about a precedent by referencing former Ambassador Tom Boyatt, who sent the cable Kissinger declined to turn over. Boyatt argued that his cable should have become public.
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Seeking to accommodate Blinken, McCaul offered to “review the document in camera” and to allow the “State Department to redact the names of the signers,” according to a press release. Still, the department declined to budge.
The subpoena is expected to be delivered to Blinken on Tuesday. The Foreign Affairs Committee is also slated to hold a hearing on aid to Ukraine this week.
