McCaul escalates Afghanistan subpoena fight after State Department's 'unacceptable' noncompliance

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Thursday pressured the State Department to comply with his subpoena for documents related to the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and asked for two top State Department officials to appear before the committee for a transcribed interview. 

"The paucity of documents produced to date by the Department is unreasonable and unacceptable," McCaul said in a letter to Blinken. 

McCaul had subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month to hand over the Afghanistan After-Action Review files to the committee by July 25. As of Thursday, the agency has only turned over 16 documents, per McCaul.

"The Department’s anemic subpoena response suggests that it is either deliberately obstructing the Committee’s oversight, or that its document retention, location, and production procedures are astoundingly deficient. Neither is acceptable," he also wrote.

McCaul requested for the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs Assistant Secretary Naz Durakoglu and Acting Legal Advisor Richard Visek to appear before the committee on or before Aug. 21 for a transcribed interview so the panel can "better understand the reasons for the Department’s continued failure" with compliance, per McCaul.

McCaul had already subpoenaed Blinken earlier this year to turn over the dissent channel cable that nearly two dozen State Department employees in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul wrote in July 2021 warning about issues in the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. McCaul and Democrat Rep. Greg Meeks were allowed to view the cable after McCaul threatened to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress.

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