Blinken faces contempt for dodging Afghanistan subpoena

The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will move to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt for his refusal to comply with subpoenas for information about the Biden administration’s botched 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), 61, will introduce a contempt charge against Blinken on May 24, which could set up a likely party-line House vote as early as June, a spokeswoman for the committee told The Post.

“The American people, particularly veterans and gold star families, deserve answers on how the Afghanistan withdrawal went so catastrophically wrong,” McCaul said in a statement.

“The July 2021 dissent cable from Kabul by 23 officials expressing dire concern over the Biden administration’s policy and the department’s official response are key evidence.”

Blinken would be the first-ever Secretary of State to be held in contempt of Congress.

However, the contempt citation will likely go no further, since the Justice Department would be unlikely to take up the charge — even after Blinken evaded several deadlines to provide information about the Aug. 30, 2021, US troop pullout.

McCaul first threatened to hold Blinken in contempt last week for his failure to hand over an unredacted copy of a July 2021 “dissent cable” in which dozens of diplomats warned about the risks of a withdrawal with the Taliban closing in on Kabul.

The Foreign Affairs Committee in May received a one-pager summarizing the four-page document, but was not satisfied.

President Biden’s decision to hurriedly withdraw US forces from Afghanistan left behind hundreds of US citizens and more than 60,000 interpreters who had worked with American military members, according to the State Department.

Thirteen US service members and hundreds of Afghans were also killed in an ISIS suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport in the final days of the pullout.

McCaul gave the secretary of state until May 12 to comply, threatening a subpoena or civil enforcement proceeding if Blinken refused.

The secretary has blown past at least three other deadlines set by McCaul in March, April and May, respectively.

State Department policy planning staff deputy director Holly Holzer attended a briefing held by the committee on the dissent cables last month, though her testimony was “more concise than the cable,” according to McCaul.

A State Department spokesman previously said revealing information from any dissent cable would go against a “cherished tradition” of diplomats being able to “speak truth to power as they see it without fear or favor.”

McCaul has publicly offered to protect the identities of the diplomats or have his committee privately review the dissent cable, to no avail.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House in April blamed former President Donald Trump for the Afghanistan debacle in its first after-action review of the bug-out, citing an agreement his administration struck with the Taliban before Biden took office.