Psaki volunteered for the interview with the House Foreign Affairs Committee after she received approval from the White House.
The committee, led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), is probing the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and has looked at thousands of documents and interviewed 17 U.S. officials.
McCaul has sought the testimony of Psaki, who left the White House in the spring of 2022, for some nine months as he scrutinizes how President Biden left Afghanistan following 20 years of war.
The withdrawal was marked by images of people clinging to transport planes, while the Taliban quickly swept to power once American forces pulled back.
And the Islamic State carried out a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members and 170 Afghans.
McCaul’s committee is interested in trying to assess from Psaki on what they say is a disconnect between private conversations among the president’s senior staff and official statements from the White House podium.
Over the course of the investigation, the committee has heard from several witnesses, including servicemembers who survived the suicide bombing.
Earlier this year, they also received testimony in a highly public hearing from former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and former Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie.
Milley testified that an evacuation order came far too late, though he said mistakes were made over the course of two decades of war.
The Biden administration has denied wrongdoing for the chaotic withdrawal, largely pinning the blame on the Trump administration, but has admitted it could plan better for evacuations.
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