The House voted Wednesday to formally condemn President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other officials over their handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The House approved the resolution by a vote of 219 to 194, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans in favor of the measure.
The resolution, introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, criticized the administration’s “chaotic and hasty” withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying its “willful refusal to properly plan a noncombatant evacuation operation and its decision to rely on the Taliban to man checkpoints around” Kabul airport led to the 2021 attack at Abbey Gate at the airport in the final days of the withdrawal.
The resolution also refers to Harris’ April 2021 comments on CNN that she played a central role in Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
Separately, the Foreign Affairs Committee voted Tuesday to pass a measure to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress after he failed to comply with a subpoena to testify at a hearing on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Blinken was at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday, the same day as the hearing, and reiterated his willingness to testify and expressed disappointment to McCaul in a letter earlier this week over the congressman’s decision to pursue the contempt resolution.
A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, disputed the need for Blinken to testify again, saying in a statement earlier this month that the secretary had testified before Congress on the matter more than any other Cabinet member.
Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies sought to blame Harris for the Afghanistan withdrawal after she entered the presidential race in July.
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate, blasted Harris last month over the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there was not a single investigation and not a single firing,” Vance said. “Sometimes mistakes happen — that’s the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to see these 13 Americans lose their lives without firing a single person is a disgrace. Kamala Harris is a disgrace.”
Family members of service members killed in the Abbey Gate attack did not invite Biden or Harris to Arlington National Cemetery last month to commemorate the third anniversary of the attack, a White House official and a Harris aide told NBC News.
Zoe Richards contributed.
