Blinken will give a congressional testimony on Afghanistan only weeks before his tenure expires

The U.S. exit from Afghanistan in August 2021 will be the subject of a lengthy disagreement between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a Republican-led House of Representatives committee. Blinken will appear before the committee on Wednesday, just weeks before his tenure ends.

The State Department and the House Foreign Affairs Committee have been arguing about Blinken’s presence for months. A few weeks prior to the presidential election, in September, panel Republicans voted in favor of holding the senior U.S. diplomat in contempt of Congress for resisting a subpoena.

The tumultuous U.S. exit from Afghanistan following two decades of conflict became highly political during the 2024 presidential campaign, which pitted Vice President Kamala Harris against President-elect Donald Trump.

On January 20, Trump will return to the White House, where he has criticized the departure from Afghanistan and promised to hold those accountable. While running for office, he declared that he would demand the resignation of any high-ranking officials “who touched the Afghanistan calamity.”

Less than seven months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Democrats have urged that Trump bear part of the blame for the war’s messy conclusion. Trump started the pullout process in 2020 by reaching an agreement with the Islamist Taliban, who are militants in Afghanistan.

The Foreign Affairs panel was given a lot of information, according to the State Department, which also provided nearly 20,000 pages of records, several high-level briefings, and transcribed interviews. Blinken testified before Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times.

On September 8, the Republican probe of the Afghanistan drawdown was published by the committee’s chairman, Representative Michael McCaul, who criticized Biden’s administration for the evacuation’s shortcomings.

“While I wish he had not delayed this crucial appearance until the end of his tenure as head of the State Department, I look forward to hearing his testimony and asking poignant questions to help House Republicans and the next administration ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” McCaul said in a prepared statement.