Psaki to Chat With House Panel on Afghan Withdrawal

(Getty Images)

Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary under President Joe Biden, agreed to meet with the House Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Psaki, who currently hosts a show on MSNBC, will appear for a transcribed interview July 26.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chair of the committee, had been requesting a meeting with Psaki since last September. McCaul said it took Psaki nine months to respond. McCaul had previously threatened Psaki with a subpoena if she refused to appear.

Psaki said her appearance is conditioned upon approval by the White House. McCaul said he expects that to be resolved by June 26.

Psaki recently published a book about her time in the Biden White House that includes the  claim that President Joe Biden never looked at his watch during the transfer ceremony for the 13 American soldiers killed in Kabul in 2021 during the withdrawal, according to McCaul.

“The committee has a vested interest in understanding those diplomatic and information transmission failures, which led to misrepresentations regarding, amongst other things, coordination with allies, contingency planning, the foreseeability of Afghanistan’s collapse, and the safety of Americans and allies in Afghanistan,” McCaul wrote in his letter. “As a former public servant, and now, a private citizen in the public sphere, you have a duty to appear before Congress when called upon.”

The Biden administration has defended the way it carried out the Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in the killing of 13 U.S. service members and nearly 200 Afghan civilians when an ISIS-K terrorist set off a suicide bomb outside the Kabul airport where evacuations were taking place.

An investigation by the Pentagon into the bombing concluded that the attack was “not preventable,” despite first-hand witness testimony alleging that the attacker could have been stopped.

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