Blinken facing contempt action if he won't give subpoenaed communication to Foreign Affairs committee

May 17, 2023

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken may become the first Biden administration official to face contempt of Congress charges under a GOP-led legislature if he doesn't hand over a communications document to the House Foreign Affairs Committee by this time next week.

Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said a vote on the contempt action may be held on May 24 because of Blinken's refusal to give a "dissent cable" sent from 23 diplomats in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul disagreeing with the timing of a military pullout in the area to the committee.

The State Department briefed the committee on the cable, but McCaul was not satisfied with the information given.

"I want to see the original content, and I also want to see the secretary's response," McCaul told reporters. "It's a state of mind in the embassy at the time, and to have 23 dissenters is very significant."

McCaul said he wants to understand "why the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and the injury of 47 more, and in the abandonment of more than a thousand U.S. citizens and hundreds of thousands of our Afghan partners in a country controlled by terrorists."

It's probable that nothing will happen to Blinken, since any contempt charges would have to be considered by the state department. But inquiring minds want to know, what is in that cable and why doesn't Blinken want anyone else to know about it?