Secretary of State Antony Blinken could be held in contempt of Congress after a key House committee advanced the penal measure on Tuesday.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a contempt resolution against the top Biden administration Cabinet secretary, setting it up for a House-wide vote after Congress returns from a six-week recess. A secretary of state has never in history been held in contempt.
“We have a duty of oversight, and no one’s above the law,” McCaul told Fox News Digital Tuesday morning.
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House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul moved to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress. (Getty Images)
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News Digital, “I’m sure we will,” when asked if there would be a House-wide vote on holding Blinken in contempt when Congress returns in November.
If the House votes to hold Blinken in contempt, he would be automatically referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges.
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The House GOP majority has already held another Biden official in contempt – Attorney General Merrick Garland. The DOJ declined to prosecute, however.
House Republicans also voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, though it was quickly dismissed by the Senate.
McCaul has accused Blinken of stonewalling his committee’s probe into President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
McCaul sent Blinken a subpoena to appear to discuss the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Getty Images)
Blinken was absent from the hearing portion due to a full schedule at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, however.
In a letter sent to McCaul over the weekend, Blinken urged McCaul to withdraw his subpoena and efforts to hold him in contempt, saying he was “disappointed” with the Texas Republican.
“As I have made clear, I am willing to testify and have offered several reasonable alternatives to the dates unilaterally demanded by the Committee during which I am carrying out the President’s important foreign policy objectives,” Blinken wrote.
But McCaul dismissed the Biden official’s arguments.
“I gave him any day,” McCaul challenged. “Any day in September, and he refuses.”
“He doesn’t have one day in the whole month of September to show up before Congress? I mean, I’ve been very flexible with him since May to try to get cooperation.”
The House prevously voted to hold Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in contempt (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
It comes after McCaul’s committee released an explosive report detailing Biden administration shortfalls that led to the hasty military withdrawal from Kabul following a lightening-fast takeover of the country by the Taliban.
The Republican-led paper opens by hearkening back to President Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.
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The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.
Two recent House contempt votes that resulted in criminal charges were those against former Trump administration advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. Both were held in contempt by the previous House Democratic majority for failing to comply with subpoenas from the now-defunct House select committee on Jan. 6.