Blinken, in a letter to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said that he was “profoundly disappointed” in the chairman's decision to advance contempt proceedings and urged him to find a resolution in “good faith.”
"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 in a Sunday letter.
The contempt of Congress charge is the latest in a series of moves by McCaul and other House Republicans over the past 18 months to hold the Biden administration accountable for what they have called a “stunning failure of leadership” after Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital far more rapidly than U.S. intelligence had foreseen as American forces pulled out in 2021.
Last week, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller accused McCaul and the committee of repeatedly calling for hearings on days they knew Blinken would be unavailable to appear.
McCaul said the department was being “disingenuous” because it had declined repeated requests to pick a date in September for Blinken to testify. “If we are forced to hold Secretary Blinken in contempt of Congress, he has no one to blame but himself,” he said in a statement last week.
