State Department officials contradicted President Joe Biden’s previous remarks that US officials in Kabul ‘may have’ given the Taliban a list of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in an attempt to get them safely to the airport.
On Friday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price denied the president’s acknowledgment that the US may have provided the Taliban with a list of names.
‘The idea that we are providing names or personally identifiable information to the Taliban in a way that exposes anyone to additional risk, that is simply wrong, simply wrong,’ Price said in response to a question about the detail of information that is being shared with the Taliban.
He did admit that ‘there is some degree of coordination’, but reiterated that ‘the notion that we are just providing them with names upon names of individuals who may stay behind in Afghanistan or in a way that would expose anyone to additional risk, that is simply, simply false.’
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press conference on Friday that the idea that the US government handed the Taliban a list of names ‘is simply false’. However, Price did admit that ‘there is some degree of coordination’ with the Taliban who is guarding all checkpoints to the Kabul airport
In a news conference on Thursday, President Joe Biden ‘I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names’
A source confirmed to Fox News that the topic did come up in a classified briefing on Capitol Hill this week and insisted that government officials did not hand over a list of ‘every single person in the country’ but has shared names piecemeal with the Taliban ‘whenever they wanted a specific group to come through.’
The source explained that the the list ‘essentially doomed’ some people who were cleared to travel to the airport but were not on the specific lists provided.
On Thursday, Biden said he was unaware of the details of the list – but said it was quite possible that it had been handed to the Taliban, with which the US is cooperating during the evacuations.
‘There have been occasions when our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through,’ he said.
‘So, yes there have been occasions like that.
‘To the best of my knowledge, in those cases, the bulk of that has occurred and they have been let through.’
Biden said that he was not aware of any specific list.
‘I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names,’ he added.
President Biden promised to hunt down and destroy the ISIS-K terrorists who were behind the double suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday, during an at-time emotional address in the East Room of the White House
The White House tore up Biden’s schedule, postponing his first meeting with the new Israeli prime minister, so he could huddle with his national security team and get the latest assessments from Kabul before delivering an address a little after the scheduled 5pm start
‘There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened.’
This differing information coming from the president and government officials isn’t the first time a government organization has had to contradict Biden’s statements.
The contradiction will raise further doubt about whether Biden is in control of the White House messaging operation, let alone the chaotic effort to bring Americans home.
Last week the Pentagon flatly contradicted Biden’s remarks minutes after claiming that ‘the mission to destroy Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a success and that he knew of no circumstances where Americans had been unable to reach Kabul airport.’
Al Qaeda remains present in Afghanistan, said Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby during a briefing, and yes, he was aware of reports of Americans being beaten by the Taliban as they tried to reach safety.
Biden’s remarks about handing the Taliban a list of names quickly received fierce backlash from Republican’s as many continue to condemn the president for his handling of the withdrawal and evacuation of Afghanistan.
Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, referred to the list as a ‘kill list’ that the Taliban will use to track down and harm Americans and their allies calling for ‘every single person involved’ to ‘resign or be impeached.’
Joe Biden (left) on Thursday was asked about a possible ‘kill list’ of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies, handed over to the Taliban. The list was designed to inform the Taliban who to let through to Kabul airport for evacuation. Biden said he was unaware of a specific list, but it was indeed possible. Donald Trump (right) slammed his successor last night, saying: ‘Now we’re giving lists of Americans to the Taliban so now you just knock on the door and grab them and take them out… What you are watching now is only going to get worse, it can only go one way’
Donald Trump has slammed Biden for handing over a list of approved Afghan evacuees to the Taliban amid fears it will now be used by the extremist group to kill those named on it.
The move was described as a gross security lapse, with one defense source telling Politico: ‘Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list.’
Trump told Fox News: ‘Now we’re giving lists of Americans to the Taliban so now you just knock on the door and grab them and take them out … What you are watching now is only going to get worse, it can only go one way.’
‘We look like fools all over the world. We are weak, we are pathetic, we are being led by people that have no idea what they are doing,’ he added.
Trump appeared on Hannity last night, saying he feels ‘very very badly’ for the Americans and Afghan allies whose names are on it.
‘I think they are in great danger… whether it’s interpreters or others, they were very loyal to our country,’ he added.
The list was reportedly handed to the Taliban after the fall of Kabul on August 15. The Taliban has been controlling the checkpoints on the road to the airport, deciding who can get in.
It was believed that the list would help them to let US citizens and allies through the gates – but it is now feared it could be used by the Taliban as a list of its enemies to be wiped out.
As the chaos around the airport mounted, the State Department on August 25 began telling Afghans hoping to leave the country not to come, and to wait for answers instead. After August 25, Afghan names were not on the list, Politico reported.
Yet for 10 days the Taliban were being handed documents detailing those who had worked with the U.S.
The existence of the kill list was revealed days after it emerged that the Taliban have obtained the biometric data of thousands of Afghans who helped the United States, according to a Republican congressman, who said Joe Biden will have blood on his hands if the data is used to hunt down Afghan allies.
Jim Banks, who represents Indiana in the House, attacked Joe Biden on Tuesday for the fact that a significant amount of weaponry was left in Afghanistan after the U.S. troops withdrew.
A Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015, while a state senator, Banks told a press conference on Capitol Hill that the Taliban had obtained a large cache of arms and equipment left behind by the U.S, after receiving a series of intelligence briefings.
But, he added, most ‘unfathomable to me and so many others’ was the biometric database, which was harvested and stored on Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE) devices to help ID locals working with the coalition.
The Taliban has, according to multiple reports, been going door-to-door and hunting down Afghans who worked with the Americans or the fallen government.
Trump last night accused Biden of being ‘weak’ for allowing the Taliban to return to power, claiming he warned the Taliban they would be wiped out by F-18 jets if they tried to take Kabul.
The former president spoke on the deal he says he made with Taliban’s political leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Sean Hannity’s show Monday night.
Trump said ‘Abdul, as I like to call him, Abdul was just going to wait on us.’
Trump argued his administration ‘had them totally under control’.
‘Every time we saw movement we hit them with an F-18 and the movement stopped,’ he said of keeping the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
‘Before, they would’ve gotten blown away. (Now) zero resistance,’ Trump said as he called Biden’s decision to take the US military out of Afghanistan ‘the dumbest move anybody has ever made perhaps in the history of our country, allowing this to happen’.
‘This country has never seen stupidity like this and our country is really in trouble,’ Trump said on the segment.
‘It’s only going to get worse… We had something where they didn’t get near us, they were petrified of us,’ he added after suggesting that this is no longer the case.
He attributed the Taliban staying out of Middle Eastern country to the deal he cut with Abdul – ‘who turns out to be the leader’ – in Doha, Qatar, in February of last year.
‘I dealt with the leader of the Taliban. This is not a very simple man. This is not a boy scout, to put it another way,’ Trump said. The former president spoke to the Taliban leader nine times over the course of 18 months before they settled on an agreement.
‘This is a tough, hardened person that has been fighting us for many years, and we are using them now to protect us? Look what happened with their protection,’ he added.
He then said he thinks the Taliban ‘couldn’t believe it’ when they heard the US military was leaving and pulling out of the war’.
‘In my opinion… they sent some fighters in and they was zero resistance,’ he said, claiming he ‘had everything under perfect control’ before ‘Biden came in and they saw weakness’.
Thousands of Afghans rushed to the airport in Kabul on August 16, desperate to flee the country. Children are pictured being lifted over the walls to try and escape their homeland
Taliban soldiers are seen standing on a Hummer in Kabul on August 16, the day after the capital fell
Taliban fighters are pictured in central Kabul on August 19
Afghans are seen waving their paperwork at soldiers outside Kabul airport on August 26
‘He (Biden) didn’t do anything,’ Trump said in frustration. ‘And they took over and then we ran out and we’ve just destroyed the image of America, of our great country, of our incredible warriors – and they are incredible warriors but they still need leadership at the top and they don’t have it.’
Trump, who released a presidential-style statement on the suicide bombing screened at the start of Hannity’s show, also told how the rescue efforts to get American soldiers out of Kabul ‘is about withdrawal’.
‘It is not about getting out because getting out is something,’ he said, calling the entire crisis a ‘disgrace’ and blaming Biden for the death of 13 Americans in Kabul.
Meanwhile, Trump insisted that if he were reelected his administration would’ve upheld the terms of his agreement with the Taliban and ‘you would have seen something very nice’.
‘Nobody would have even realized we had gone. Everybody would have been out. The equipment would have been out. I would have blown up all of the bases,’ he said.
‘We would have kept Bagram because of China and Iran and Afghanistan – to a much lesser extent – and literally nobody would have even known,’ he added.
The former president harshly criticized the Biden administration for veering off his original plan with Abdul, which said the US was to get out of Afghanistan in 14 months and, in exchange, the Taliban agreed to stop attacking US military members while stopping Afghanistan from becoming riddled with terrorists.
The Taliban also agreed to start working towards a peace agreement with the Afghan government and consider a cease-fire.
Instead, ‘we have been put in the worst position we could possibly be put in,’ Trump told Hannity during the hour-long segment.
‘It’s hard to believe, actually, because a child would have understood. You get the military out last. A child would have understood that. How could they have done this to our country?’
As a result, ‘the Taliban and others are dictating,’ Trump said.
‘They are the ones saying get out on the 31st. I think Biden wanted to stay,’ he added, claiming the leader of the Taliban told Biden: ‘We want you out by the 31st of there will be consequences.’
Taliban fighters are seen outside Kabul airport on August 19. They control the perimeter of the airport and are coordinating with U.S. officials to decide who can enter
U.S. Marine with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) gives a child a chemical light to play with during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 25
U.S. Marines are providing security at Hamid Karzai International Airport as evacuation flights carry thousands of people to safety on August 24
Until the blast, crowds of desperate Afghans and foreigners desperately tried to show their paperwork to US and NATO forces to be allowed through on August 16
‘What kind of stuff is this?’ Trump questioned in disbelief, shocked that people he had ‘at bay to a level that you wouldn’t believe’ have now killed American soldiers.
Trump repeatedly described the events unfolding in Kabul not only as ‘so sad’ but also as ‘the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to our country’.
‘We look like fools all over the world. We are weak, we are pathetic, we are being led by people that have no idea what they are doing,’ he added.
He cited how Biden ‘botched’ his plan ‘and took the military out first’ rather than last, leaving $80billion worth of equipment behind.
The Taliban now has ‘the best equipment, best rockets, best tanks and helicopters,’ Trump said, fearing that ‘this country has never seen stupidity like this and our country is really in trouble’.
Criticism of Biden’s handling of the crisis continued to mount throughout Thursday as the president remained out of sight before his address to the nation.
Biden began his speech with a tribute to the personnel who died, his voice cracking with emotion.
‘These American service members who gave their lives – it’s an overused word, but it’s totally appropriate – were heroes … heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others,’ he said.
‘They are part of an airlift, an evacuation effort unlike any seen in history.’