McCaul pressures Blinken with subpoena threat for unredacted Afghanistan withdrawal docs

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Thursday pressured Secretary of State Antony Blinken for unredacted documents related to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, threatening a subpoena if the requested materials aren’t provided by next week.

“The Department must comply with each of the Committee’s requests. As stated above, many of these requests date back to January 2023, and have gone without compliance. The Department has had ample time to fulfill these requests. We are giving the Department one week from today to provide the requested documents,” McCaul wrote in a new letter.

The Texas lawmaker notes that while the State Department has already provided some of the materials he’d previously requested, “the productions contained significant redactions and omissions that are unacceptable” to the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

“Repeated requests to rectify these deficiencies have gone unfulfilled. If the Department fails to satisfy these requests” by the deadline, McCaul wrote, “I am prepared to proceed with compulsory process.”

The letter gives Blinken and his department until 5 p.m. June 15 to produce the requested materials “in complete and unredacted form” or else risk subpoena. 

The Thursday letter is the latest of several actions in McCaul’s effort to obtain information and materials related to the controversial U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Republicans made investigating the Biden administration’s move a top priority ahead of the midterms, when they took the House majority. 

Last month, McCaul threatened a vote on whether to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress if the State Department didn’t give up a classified cable related to the withdrawal. Blinken agreed to let lawmakers listen to the cable.