Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki will appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee for a transcribed interview about the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, a spokesperson for the committee’s Republican majority confirmed to The Hill.
Psaki, who now hosts an MSNBC show, is expected to give the interview on July 26. She volunteered to speak to the committee after receiving approval from the White House.
Rachel Cotton, deputy counsel to the president, responded to the committee that the White House agreed to an “extraordinary accommodation” in authorizing Psaki’s interview but asked that she be accompanied by a personal attorney and the White House Counsel’s Office.
His appearance before the committee was first reported by Axes.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) sought Psaki’s testimony for nine months as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the Biden administration’s departure from Afghanistan, which ended the U.S.’s nearly two-decade war in Afghanistan. country.
US plans to end its military operation in Afghanistan in August 2021 have turned into chaos amid a rapid Taliban takeover and the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government in Kabul.
The US evacuated its diplomatic staff and carried out a massive airlift for more than 120,000 people, most of them vulnerable Afghans fleeing the threat of violence, retaliation and repression under Taliban rule.
The American departure was marked by images of people clinging to and falling from departing planes, and by a suicide bombing carried out by the Islamic State that killed 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghans, and injured dozens of others.
McCaul made investigating the Biden administration’s departure from Afghanistan a priority task when he took over as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January 2023.
The Biden administration, at the time of the withdrawal, said it had not anticipated that the US-backed government in Kabul and the US-trained and supplied Afghan military would disappear in the face of the Taliban offensive. The administration defended its operation as successful for managing the evacuation of more than 120,000 people.
Republicans argue that the way the withdrawal emboldened America’s enemies and pushed for President Biden and his top aides to be held accountable for the failures that resulted in what was two weeks of turmoil.
In August 2022, McCaul published an interim report on the investigation as a ranking member of the committee, titled “’A Strategic Failure’: Assessing the Administration’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
The report did not present any smoking gun, but focused on the lack of planning that led to the evacuation, arguing that a series of mistakes and errors complicated what turned out to be a deadly evacuation.
The committee reviewed 10,000 documents and conducted 17 transcribed interviews with US officials. It also held hearings with senior Biden officials, including former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and the commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie.
The committee said it will seek to question Psaki about the disconnect between private conversations and assessments among the president’s senior staff and the explanations and arguments presented in the White House press box.
McCaul, in a letter to Psaki’s lawyer requesting her appearance before the committee, said her testimony will provide “important insights into the planning and decision-making regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the rapid seizure of power by the Taliban, and the evacuation of American citizens and Afghan allies.” ”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25515682/snapchat_houses.png?w=300&resize=300,300&ssl=1)
