Top House GOP lawmaker calls for Sullivan to testify on Afghanistan

The top House Republican with oversight of foreign affairs is calling for President Biden’s national security adviser to sit for public questioning in September about the decisionmaking behind the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, coming upon the three-year anniversary of America’s chaotic exit from the country.

The demand to hear from Jake Sullivan comes as former President Trump attacks the Biden administration for what he says was a failure on the Afghanistan exit, an issue he is tying to Vice President Harris, the new Democratic presidential nominee.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is calling for Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, to testify over his role in the planning and execution of the administration’s withdrawal.

“Over the course of the investigation, the overwhelming weight of witness testimony and documentary evidence has pointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as the nerve center for critical decision making regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” McCaul wrote in a letter to the White House last week.  

“Please arrange by no later than Friday, August 30, 2024, for NSC Advisor Jake Sullivan to appear before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for a public hearing on a mutually agreeable date in September 2024. If Mr. Sulivan chooses not to appear voluntarily, I am prepared to compel his testimony.”

The interview request is part of McCaul’s effort to determine accountability for the violent end of America’s longest war. The Taliban ousted the U.S.-backed government in Kabul over the course of two weeks in August 2021 with little resistance.

Sharon Yang, a White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said in a statement that the White House will respond directly to McCaul over his request. 

Yang also defended the administration’s position on ending the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. 

“The President refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a war that should have ended long ago, and bringing U.S. troops home has put us in a stronger position to address the challenges of the future and the threats we face today,” she said.

The Biden administration had expressed confidence in the stability of the Afghan government and military forces to maintain control of Kabul, despite a lightning offensive by the Taliban that summer. 

President Biden was working to remove all U.S. troops from the country in line with an agreement the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban.

Biden sought to maintain a diplomatic presence in the country, and administration officials said they received assurances from Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani that he would stay in the capital to lead the defense against the Taliban that at that point were marching toward the city. 

But Ghani fled the country hours after speaking with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And as the Taliban entered the capital, the U.S. undertook a hasty and chaotic evacuation of its Embassy.

A bombing at Kabul’s airport carried out by ISIS-K, the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 170 Afghans, wounding scores more. The attack came on top of desperate scenes of thousands of people seeking to flee the country, with people overwhelming the airport and some clinging and then falling from airplanes taking off. 

Republicans have criticized Biden as failing to take accountability, while Democrats argue the entire episode must be viewed in context of the policies carried out by Trump’s administration and the history of the war.

Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has cast Harris as a key player in the failures and criticized her for not taking responsibility for the deaths of the 13 soldiers.

Trump has called for firing those responsible for the evacuation chaos.

“We will get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day,” Trump said Monday in Detroit. 

Political appointees in senior positions typically leave their positions with a change in administrations. 

McCaul is expected to issue a final report next month on his investigation into the circumstances and decisionmaking of the U.S. withdrawal based on interviews with 18 State Department and Pentagon officials. 

“Evidence gathered by the Committee in this investigation points to Mr. Sullivan as the principal architect of Afghanistan policy,” McCaul wrote in his letter.

“Accordingly, he has an obligation to appear before Congress and testify fully without raising any claims of executive privilege. The Committee is not interested in and does not intend to question Mr. Sullivan regarding communications he had with President Biden. Rather, the Committee has reason to believe that the NSC engaged in misconduct with Mr. Sullivan at the helm.”