{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://amo.house.gov/press-release/amo-slams-republicans-on-their-sham-partisan-investigation-of-the-afghanistan-withdrawal", "Amo Slams Republicans on their Sham Partisan Investigation of the Afghanistan Withdrawal", "2024-09-24", "2024", "2024-09", "Democrat", "House", "RI", "Gabe Amo", "A000380", "amo.house.gov", "amo", "https://amo.house.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 Earlier today, Congressman Gabe Amo (RI-01) spoke about the inane Republican effort to hold the Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress. In a House Committee on Foreign Affairs markup hearing, Congressman Amo denounced partisan attacks on President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and called out Republicans who impeded a thorough investigation of the Afghanistan withdrawal by focusing only on actions taken after President Biden took office. Congressman Amo also reminded committee members that Donald Trump was derelict in his duty by failing to process visas for Afghan allies and by insisting on troop withdrawals despite the Taliban\u2019s lack of compliance with the Doha Agreement.\n\n\u201cMy friends on the other side of the aisle have devolved this investigation into a partisan food fight \u2014 complete with spaghetti thrown at the wall in the hopes that it sticks,\u201d said Congressman Gabe Amo. \u201cIf Republicans are searching for those responsible for impeding this investigation, there is a mirror in the bathroom. By insisting on making this investigation the latest culture war avenue to bash President Biden, they\u2019ve prevented us from carrying out a thorough investigation.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a damn shame that Republicans would rather attack President Biden before confiding \u2014 much less acknowledging \u2014 that Donald Trump bears an iota of responsibility for what happened. This is not a complete investigation. This is a sham,\u201d continued Congressman Amo. \u201cIf the other side was serious about finding the truth, then we wouldn\u2019t be debating this bogus report today.\u201d\n\nVideo of full hearing exchange HERE.\n\nBACKGROUND\n\nOn August 12, 2024, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul requested in-person testimony from Secretary of State Antony Blinken regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. On August 19, 2024, Secretary Blinken alerted Chairman McCaul that he would be traveling on official business throughout the month of September and would not be available on the date requested.\n\nOn September 18, 2024, Chairman McCaul issued a subpoena to Secretary Blinken to compel his testimony on September 24 \u2014 despite knowing that Secretary Blinken would need to be in New York City on that day for the United Nations General Assembly. On September 22 and September 23, 2024, Secretary Blinken sent letters to Chairman McCaul explaining in detail why he would not be available to testify. Of note, Secretary Blinken has already testified on the Afghanistan withdrawal 14 times before Congress and 4 of those times were in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.\n\nOn September 24, 2024, Chairman McCaul submitted a report recommending the House finds Secretary Blinken in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Republican findings in this report summarize only a partial overview of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report fails to include the full facts of the investigation by focusing only on actions following President Biden taking office. By excluding the start of the U.S. withdrawal under former President Trump, Republicans exclude key aspects of the withdrawal, including information on the faults of the Doha Agreement which set in motion the overall withdrawal.\n\nFULL HEARING REMARKS AS DELIVERED\n\nThank you, Mr. Chairman.\n\nRight now, we should be mourning the 13 service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan.\n\nWe should be putting country over party to come to a bipartisan understanding of the full picture of what went wrong.\n\nAnd we should be locking arms to make sure that a withdrawal like this never happens again.\n\nBut instead, my friends on the other side of the aisle have devolved this investigation into a partisan food fight \u2014 complete with spaghetti thrown at the wall in the hopes that it sticks.\n\nTake the report that\u2019s in front of us today.\n\nWe\u2019re only debating it today because Republicans want to force Secretary Blinken to pause his essential work around the world to testify yet again.\n\nLet\u2019s be clear, Secretary Blinken is not the one obstructing this investigation.\n\nHow can he be?\n\nHe\u2019s already testified 14 times before Congress on the Afghanistan withdrawal \u2014 4 of those times in front of this very Committee.\n\nIf Republicans are searching for those responsible for impeding this investigation, there is a mirror in the bathroom.\n\nBy insisting on making this investigation the latest culture war avenue to bash President Biden, they\u2019ve prevented us from carrying out a thorough investigation.\n\nIf Republicans really cared about the truth, then they\u2019d look at the full withdrawal from Afghanistan. They would not start when President Biden lawfully took office on January 20, 2021.\n\nThere is an embarrassing lack of investigative rigor that is deeply concerning.\n\nThroughout their own report, Republicans reveal clear gaps in information that could have been answered by looking into what happened before President Biden took office.\n\nTake page 8 of this report. Page 8 acknowledges that the Taliban did not comply with the Doha Agreement since the beginning of the deal, when President Trump was in office.\n\nWhy did Donald Trump fail to hold the Taliban accountable in the first year of the agreement? Why did he instead draw down troops and leave us in a weakened state during the final stages of the withdrawal?\n\nPage 13 of this report mentions the large backlog of Special Immigrant Visas for our Afghan allies.\n\nThe State Department found that the Trump Administration \u201cmade no senior-level or interagency effort to address the backlog or consider options for other at-risk Afghans despite its commitment to a military withdrawal.\u201d\n\nWhy did Donald Trump worsen this backlog in the first place by not prioritizing those visas, leaving those who helped our troops withering in the wind?\n\nThese are just two of many examples of how the report willingly turns a blind eye to reality.\n\nAnd it\u2019s a damn shame that Republicans would rather attack President Biden before confiding \u2014 much less acknowledging \u2014 that Donald Trump bears an iota of responsibility for what happened.\n\nThis is not a complete investigation. This is a sham.\n\nIf the other side was serious about finding the truth, then we wouldn\u2019t be debating this bogus report today.\n\nInstead, we would be thanking our diplomats who swear the same oath to the Constitution that we do.\n\nPatriots who go to work every single day focused on protecting and defending the constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. They represent the best of our nation.\n\nI yield back.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:43:57Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://amo.house.gov/press-release/amo-slams-republicans-on-their-sham-partisan-investigation-of-the-afghanistan-withdrawal"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7269731722772121, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}