Republicans give national security adviser seven-day Afghan deadline

Republicans stepped up pressure on President Joe Biden ‘s national security adviser Tuesday, giving Jake Sullivan seven days to arrange to answer questions about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan or face a subpoena to appear before Congress . House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul believes Sullivan was chief architect of the hurried exit.

He has been pushing for Biden’s top foreign affairs adviser to appear before his investigation to explain whether he hid dire military assessments about the stability of the Kabul government from the public. And he accuses Sullivan’s National Security Council of going beyond its role of advising Biden to taking operational control that should have been the preserve of the State Department. ‘Mr. Sullivan must testify before this committee, not because of his title, but because of the power he wielded,’ writes McCaul in a letter sent to the White House on Tuesday and obtained by DailyMail.com.

The letter gives Sullivan until Tuesday, September 24, to arrange an appearance for a public hearing of face a ‘compulsory process.’ Democrats accuse McCaul of using the subpoena threat as a political stunt to discredit Biden and Kamala Harris, his vice president, during an election year. Biden came to power promising to end America’s longest war after 20 years. But the 2021 withdrawal triggered a rapid Taliban advance across Afghanistan. The hardline movement’s fighters swept into Kabul in August before U.S. troops had completed their exit.

Without their allies, Afghan government forces simply melted away. The result was pandemonium. More American troops had to fly into the country to secure the capital’s airport, where tens of thousands of terrified foreigners and Afghans sought safe passage out. Tragedy struck on August 26, when a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. personnel and about 170 Afghans. The withdrawal cast a long shadow over Biden’s presidency.

And last week, McCaul published the results of his investigation , which concluded that the administration failed to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government because it picked ‘optics over security.’ He wrote to Sullivan last month asking for him to give testimony. ‘As I explained in my letter dated August 23, 2024, the National Security Council (NSC), led by Mr. Sullivan, served as the nerve center for critical decision making for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,’ McCaul writes in his letter. ‘In so doing, Mr. Sullivan systematically exercised powers delegated to the Department of State, and critical questions remain that only he can answer.’

He goes on to say that his 355-page report reveals how hundreds of witnesses and documentary references put Sullivan at the center of the withdrawal operation. ‘Should Mr. Sullivan refuse this request, my next step will be compulsory process,’ writes McCaul. He says Sullivan was the chief decision-maker of the inter-agency process that led to Biden’s April 2021 ‘go-to-zero’ order and he remained in that position through the withdrawal. And he says the national security adviser ‘materially misled the American public’ with rosy security assessment.

That came to a head on Aug. 31, 2021, when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said: ‘I don’t think anyone assessed [the Afghan government and forces] would collapse as quickly they did.’ McCaul writes: ‘My report revealed Ms. Psaki’s statement to be false—senior military advisors predicted a rapid collapse during meetings with the NSC—and my report also established Mr. Sullivan was responsible for Ms. Psaki’s press briefings.’ The White House has not so far made Sullivan available for testimony.

Sharon Yang, spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said the U.S. was stronger for ending the nation’s longest war. ‘When it comes to the chairman’s inquiry into the withdrawal from Afghanistan, as we have said before, the administration has taken extraordinary measures to be cooperative, including making senior officials available for hearings, providing briefings for members and staff, making 18 current and former officials available for transcribed interviews, and producing tens of thousands of pages of documents,’ she said.

‘We’ve previously responded directly to the chairman regarding this request, and we will continue to do so.’ The top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee has accused McCaul of weaponizing his investigation for political theater. ‘It has been made abundantly clear throughout this committee’s Afghanistan investigation that House Republicans have no interest in any facts that they can’t spin into an attack on the Biden Administration, especially when those facts contradict their paper-thin and partisan narrative,’ said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, when McCaul first warned Sullivan that he could be compelled to testify.

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