Republicans on Tuesday ratcheted up pressure on President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, giving Jake Sullivan seven days to answer questions about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan or risk being subpoenaed to appear before Congress.
Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, believes Sullivan is the main architect of the hasty exit.
He has insisted that Biden’s top foreign policy adviser appear before his investigation to explain whether he concealed from the public dire military assessments about the stability of the government in Kabul.
And he accuses Sullivan’s National Security Council of going beyond its role of advising Biden and taking operational control that should have been the domain of the State Department.
“Mr. Sullivan should testify before this committee not because of his title, but because of the power he wielded,” McCaul wrote in a letter sent to the White House on Tuesday and obtained by DailyMail.com.
House Republicans are demanding that Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, appear at a public hearing to answer questions about the withdrawal from Afghanistan
The letter gives Sullivan until Tuesday, September 24, to arrange a public hearing or undergo a “compulsory process.”
Democrats accuse McCaul of using the subpoena threat as a political stunt to discredit Biden and Kamala Harris, his vice president, during an election year.
Biden came to office promising to end the longest war in American history in 20 years.
But the 2021 withdrawal prompted a rapid Taliban advance across Afghanistan, with hardline militants entering Kabul in August before U.S. troops had completed their withdrawal.
Without their allies, Afghan government forces disappeared into thin air.
The result was pandemonium. More American troops had to be flown into the country to secure the capital’s airport, where tens of thousands of terrified foreigners and Afghans were seeking safe exit.
On August 26, a tragedy occurred when a suicide bomber killed 13 American soldiers and approximately 170 Afghans.
The withdrawal cast a long shadow over Biden’s presidency.
And last week, McCaul released the results of his investigation, which showed that the administration had failed to anticipate the inevitable fall of the Afghan government because it chose “optics over security.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the White House today setting a seven-day deadline for Sullivan to arrange to appear
Panic broke out at Kabul airport on Monday as thousands of people rushed onto the runway in a desperate bid to escape Taliban rule, fearing bloody reprisals from the Islamists.
He wrote Sullivan a letter last month asking him to testify
“As I explained in my letter of August 23, 2024, the National Security Council (NSC), under Mr. Sullivan’s leadership, served as the nerve center for critical decision-making for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,” McCaul wrote in his letter.
“In doing so, Mr. Sullivan has systematically exercised powers delegated to the State Department. Critical questions remain that only he can answer.”
He goes on to say that his 355-page report shows how hundreds of witnesses and documentary references place Sullivan at the center of the withdrawal operation.
“Should Mr. Sullivan deny this request, my next step will be to seek an injunction,” McCaul wrote.
He says Sullivan was the key decision-maker in the interagency process that led to Biden’s April 2021 “go-to-zero” order and remained in that position until the withdrawal.
And he says the national security adviser “materially misled the American public” with his rosy security assessment.
McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has spent the past 18 months investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
Taliban forces seized control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, prompting an indiscriminate evacuation of foreigners and vulnerable Afghans. And that meant U.S. troops had to rely on Taliban assistance
That reached a peak on August 31, 2021, when White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I don’t think anyone has assessed the situation. [the Afghan government and forces] would collapse just as quickly.’
McCaul writes: “My report found that Ms. Psaki’s statement was false — senior military advisers predicted a rapid collapse during meetings with the NSC — and my report also found that Mr. Sullivan was responsible for Ms. Psaki’s press conferences.”
The White House has so far not made Sullivan available to testify.
Sharon Yang, spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said the US was stronger after ending the longest war in the country’s history.
“With respect to the Chairman’s inquiry into the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Administration, as we have said before, has taken extraordinary steps to cooperate, including making senior officials available for hearings, providing briefings for members and staff, making 18 current and former officials available for transcribed interviews, and producing tens of thousands of pages of documents,” she said.
13 Americans were killed in the explosion at Kabul International Airport: (left to right, starting in the top row) Corporal Daegan W. Page – Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo – Staff Sergeant Darin T. Hoover – Lance Corporal David L. Espinoza – Lance Corporal Rylee J. McCollum – Lance Corporal Kareem M. Nikoui – Corporal Hunter Lopez – Lance Corporal Jared M. Schmitz – Staff Sergeant Ryan C. Knauss – Corporal Humberto A. Sanchez – Marine Corpsman Maxton W. Soviak – Lance Corporal Dylan R. Merola – Sgt. Nicole L. Gee
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“We have previously responded directly to this request to the Chairman and will continue to do so.”
The top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee accuses McCaul of using his investigation for political theater.
“It has become abundantly clear during this committee’s Afghanistan investigation that Republicans in the House of Representatives have no interest in facts they cannot use to attack the Biden administration, especially when those facts contradict their flimsy and partisan narrative,” said Representative Gregory W. Meeks, when McCaul first warned Sullivan that he might be forced to testify.