This isn’t as good of a plan as “Impeach Antony Blinken” but it’s not a bad start. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has, as promised, been investigating Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 ever since the GOP took back the majority. One element of that investigation has involved a so-called “dissent channel” cable that was sent before the withdrawal. An unnamed senior official allegedly warned the Biden administration that if the pullout proceeded as planned, the city of Kabul would collapse and be overrun by the Taliban as soon as we evacuated the area. But the State Department has been dragging its feet and stonewalling the committee in terms of releasing the cable. And now, Congressman Michael McCaul appears to be done waiting and the committee has threatened to charge Antony Blinken with Contempt of Congress if he refuses to comply. (Reuters)

The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee threatened Secretary of State Antony Blinken with contempt of Congress if he does not comply with a subpoena seeking a classified cable related to the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a letter to Blinken dated Friday and released on Monday, Representative Michael McCaul said information that has been provided about a “dissent channel” cable sent in July 2021 and the department’s response to the cable were insufficient to satisfy the committee.

The committee issued a subpoena in March seeking the information.

Rumors of the existence of this cable have been circulating ever since the withdrawal. The new GOP Majority began seeking it soon after they were seated. Thus far all Blinken has provided is a classified briefing and a letter “describing” the memo, not the full document itself. But given everything we’ve been learning about Tony Blinken lately, there is little reason to have confidence in the idea that Congress is receiving the full story.

Blinken has gone out of his way to do whatever it takes to avoid any news that might be perceived as being bad for Joe Biden’s political prospects. But this is one of those cases where the elephant in the room is too large to hide. As we’ve said from day one, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster and many people lost their lives. Others are still being held hostage.

Our military leaders may not be perfect, but they’re not idiots. (Even if their Commander in Chief currently appears to be severely cognitively impaired.) The people on the ground there had to know how badly that plan was going to go south. And some of them would have spoken up privately to the leadership in Washington, hoping to avoid a disaster.

The disaster that followed was plain for all to see and it continues to this day. But the Biden administration has continued to insist that they did “the best that they could do” and that “nobody could have known” what a debacle it would turn into. Having proof showing up now confirming that people did know and tried to avert it would be a very bad look for Joe Biden right after he announced his reelection bid. After all, the final call on the withdrawal was his and nobody else’s. He owns this mess for better or worse the House GOP is trying to fulfill a campaign promise and bring all of this information to light.

There are more than enough reasons to impeach Tony Blinken already, not that the will in the Senate will exist to convict and remove him. But carrying through with a Contempt charge against him would at least shine more of a light on everything he’s been up to.