The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted along partisan lines to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt for refusing to testify on Tuesday about the botched August 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.
After hours of deliberation, the Republican-led committee voted 26-25, with all Republicans in favor of holding Blinken in contempt of Congress and all Democrats opposed.
“Rather than take responsibility for this, the Secretary of State is hiding from the American people. He would rather hide than appear before this committee today,” said Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
“It is the Secretary of State's deliberate indifference that has brought us to this moment.”
Republican committee members had hoped Blinken would clarify the “go to zero” order in Afghanistan that prompted the withdrawal of U.S. diplomats and troops and led to days of chaos at Kabul International Airport.
An ISIS-K suicide bomber took advantage of the frenzy and detonated himself at Abbey Gate outside the airport, killing 13 US soldiers.
In a scathing report earlier this month, Republican committee members criticized Secretary of State Blinken for leaving the U.S. embassy open for too long during the evacuation and for not calling for a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) until mid-August, after the capital had fallen to the Taliban.
Asked by reporters on Tuesday when the bill would be passed by the full House, House Speaker Mike Johnson said a vote wouldn't take place until after the 2024 election on Nov. 5.
Earlier this year, House Republicans narrowly passed a bill to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for denying investigative committees access to audio tapes of meetings between President Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur.
The bill never passed the Democratic-controlled Senate, but even if it had, the Justice Department would likely not pursue charges.
The Blinken contempt bill would likely meet a similar fate if passed by the House.
The only former administration officials to serve prison time for contempt of Congress in recent years are former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Both men were given four-month prison sentences in federal court for ignoring subpoenas from the House Jan. 6 Select Committee investigating the 2021 Capitol attack.
They each argued that executive privilege prevented them from cooperating.
According to the Associated Press, Blinken wrote to McCaul on Sunday saying he was “deeply disappointed” by the move and asked whether the two sides could find a “good faith” solution.
“As I have made clear, I am prepared to testify and have offered several reasonable alternatives to the schedule the Committee unilaterally requested to accomplish the President's significant foreign policy objectives,” the Secretary of State said.
McCaul said during Tuesday's amendment debate that he had given Blinken the date for September testimony but that it was ignored.
The Foreign Relations Committee, in its report on the contempt resolution on Monday, said it had already rescinded one subpoena for Blinken to appear to accommodate the Cabinet member's busy travel schedule amid the Israeli-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past six days, Blinken has traveled from Egypt to France to New York for follow-up meetings on the Russia-Ukraine war.
Democrats on the committee denounced the contempt vote as “political theater.”
“It's not hard for the American people to understand what this is,” said Sen. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.
“This is yet another attempt to put the names of senior Biden administration officials in negative headlines.”
The Washington Post has reached out to the State Department for comment.
