Secretary of State Antony Blinken was a no-show at a congressional hearing Tuesday morning, triggering House Republicans to move toward holding the nation’s top diplomat in contempt of Congress.
Blinken originally was subpoenaed Sept. 3 by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, for a hearing on the committee’s investigation into the Biden-Harris administration’s poorly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The secretary of state was expected to rebuff the Foreign Affairs Committee’s demand to appear despite persistent threats from McCaul that the panel would hold him in contempt. To show it was serious about holding Blinken accountable, the committee released a draft contempt resolution report Monday, and will now look to carry out its threat.
In anticipation of McCaul’s move, Blinken penned a letter to the chairman dated Sunday and attempting to justify his absence from Tuesday’s hearing.
Blinken, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that he was “profoundly disappointed you have once again chosen to send me a subpoena and threaten contempt, rather than engage with me and the [State] Department in a meaningful way to resolve this matter through the constitutionally mandated accommodation process.”
The secretary of state also said in the letter that before the committee issued its Sept. 3 subpoena, he spoke with McCaul over the phone and informed the chairman that he would be in Egypt on Sept. 19, the day the committee originally planned to have Blinken testify.
“On Sept. 18, you issued a ‘superseding’ subpoena for me to appear on Sept. 24, accompanied by a letter in which you claimed you had just become aware of my travel to the Middle East, despite the fact I had personally informed you,” Blinken wrote.
The secretary of state added that in their phone conversation Sept. 3, he said he would be unavailable because of meetings at the U.N. General Assembly.
Blinken’s letter, however, did not stop the Foreign Affairs Committee from moving toward holding Biden’s secretary of state in contempt. In a 29-page contempt report, McCaul noted that the committee already had made “an accommodation to the secretary’s travel schedule” and “compell[ed] his appearance on a date the secretary stated he would be in the United States.”
“Despite repeated warnings and accommodations, Secretary Blinken refused to appear to provide his testimony before the committee,” the report says.
McCaul seems to remember his Sept. 3 phone conversation with Blinken differently. When asked to testify before the House committee, the report asserts, “Secretary Blinken refused.”
This would have been Blinken’s first time addressing the committee since it released the findings of its investigation into the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“When asked by Chairman McCaul to dedicate a few hours for public testimony, Secretary Blinken asserted [he] was unavailable every single day in September,” the report says of the Blinken-McCaul phone call.
It adds:
Secretary Blinken apparently planned to attend events associated with the United Nations General Assembly in New York the week of Sept. 23 to 27 and was unwilling to travel back to D.C. during any of those days for a hearing. The United States has a designated United Nations ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who would also be in attendance.
When Blinken didn’t appear Tuesday, McCaul adjourned the hearing on the Afghanistan exit and announced that he intended “to proceed with a markup to begin the formal process of holding the secretary in contempt of Congress.”
Rather than taking questions from the American lawmakers, Blinken posted a video of himself on the way to the U.N. gathering where the secretary was to hobnob with the global elite.
The House now heads toward a vote to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress, which if prosecuted and resulting in a conviction may result in $100,000 in fines or one month to a year behind bars.
Prosecuting Blinken’s failure to appear before American representatives is the responsibility of Biden’s Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Although the House voted in June to hold Garland himself in contempt of Congress, his Justice Department simply declined to prosecute.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
