Blinken to appear at House hearing on Afghanistan next week

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will appear before lawmakers on Monday to answer questions about the State Department’s role in the evacuation of Afghanistan.  

The hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee will kick off what is likely to be a number of hearings about the administration’s handling of the end of the United States’ longest war. 

The State Department has yet to release a number of details about its planning for the withdrawal or offer a full accounting of the 124,000 people the U.S. evacuated.

Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) in mid-August requested Blinken as well as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appear before the committee.

“The situation in Afghanistan is rapidly changing and it is imperative that the administration provide the American people and Congress transparency about its Afghanistan strategy,” he said at the time.

Blinken is likely to face sharp questioning from both sides of the aisle, particularly from members who had been urging the State Department to speed processing of Special Immigrant Visa applications for those who assisted the U.S. military.

“The security and humanitarian disaster unfolding was avoidable, and it was caused in large part by the acts, omissions, and delays from the State Department which you lead,” the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), wrote in an Aug. 20 letter to Blinken asking the State Department to turn over a number of documents. 

“Questionable decisions at the State Department have compounded the problems we now face.”  

Blinken is also slated to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.