Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has turned herself in.
According to Axios, after months of back-and-forth discussions, Psaki has agreed to be interviewed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is investigating the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The committee’s chairman, Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, said the committee plans to release a report on the Biden administration’s disastrous troop withdrawal from Afghanistan before the November election.
McCall initially reached out to Psaki, now an MSNBC host, in September but was met with pushback.
Axios said the committee will look for discrepancies between the message she conveyed to the American people as President Joe Biden’s spokesperson and what the White House actually knew, that Afghanistan collapsed within days and thousands were trapped in Kabul. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in the terrorist attack, adding to the chaos.
On June 5, McCaul wrote to Psaki’s lawyers that she had “published her opinions on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan for public consumption and personal gain.” Ms. Psaki’s congressional appearance The liability is clear, and her former employer’s desire to avoid congressional oversight is irrelevant.
The chairman said at the time that he would summon her if necessary.
On June 24, the White House Counsel’s Office told McCaul that the committee’s request “raises serious separation of powers and executive branch secrecy issues.”
However, it said, “As a special arrangement, we will authorize Ms. Psaki to participate in a voluntary transcribed interview accompanied by private counsel and the White House Counsel’s Office, subject to appropriate interview terms and conditions.”
An interim report released ahead of the 2022 election in which Republicans control Congress condemned the actions of Biden and his administration.
“[T]The government has repeatedly delayed taking the critical actions necessary to mitigate the possible consequences of this decision. The result of their inaction was a chaotic noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) that left 13 U.S. service members dead and more than 800 Americans abandoned behind enemy lines,” the initial report said.
It said that when Biden announced his withdrawal in April 2021, he made many propositions to the American people.
“However, the committee minority now believes that these claims are inaccurate. Worse, President Biden may well realize that these claims are inaccurate when he makes his case to the American people in April 2021.
“The Biden administration’s own internal assessment concludes that Afghan forces will not be able to defend the country from Taliban attacks without the U.S. air support, military advisors and contractors they rely on to support Afghan air force operations,” the report states. “. “The president has been warned repeatedly that the Taliban’s return is a matter of when, not if.”
“The government has taken virtually no action to evacuate Afghan partners fighting alongside our forces,” the initial report said.
The president and his aides allegedly deceived the American people.
“The Biden administration has repeatedly misled the American people about the true situation in Kabul and issued public statements that were directly contrary to internal reports sent by the State Department and the U.S. military,” the report said.
“While the Biden administration claims a robust review process for troop withdrawals, it acknowledges that advice from top military advisers, diplomats and allies was ignored,” the statement read.
This article originally appeared in Western Daily News.
