The Republican requests information from the State Department regarding delayed flights to Afghanistan

First on Fox: Republican congressman is in conflict Secretary of State Antony Blinken Insisting that the State Department did not prevent citizens from leaving Mazar-i-Sharif Air Base in Afghanistan during the frantic withdrawal.

Rep. Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, wrote a letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, demanding to know how many planes the State Department prevented from leaving the air base, who made the call about whether flights would be cleared for takeoff, and what the criteria were. Take off? It was to prevent flight delays and whether there were contacts with the Taliban.

After withdrawalReports have emerged that 1,000 people, including Americans, are stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport waiting for clearance to depart their charter flights.

Many of them made the 400-mile journey from Kabul so they could exit more quickly at the airport in northern Afghanistan.

House GOP issues scathing report on Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan

One of the tour organizers told Reuters that the Foreign Ministry had not informed the Taliban of its approval for the flights to depart from Mazar-i-Sharif or verified the landing site.

Davidson said in the letter that when he was in talks with… Ministry of Foreign Affairs, One of the officials asked him “what tail number” he was referring to, hinting that more than one flight had not received clearance to take off and had been delayed.

Colonel Francis Huang, who worked on evacuations in Afghanistan with his Airlift 21 group, told the Foreign Affairs Committee: “We spent three weeks hiding these approximately 400 people from the Taliban, keeping them alive and feeding them using money from donors.” Americans.”

During a hearing last week, Davidson asked Blinken: “Did the State Department prevent American citizens from departing from the airport in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan?”

“Absolutely not,” Blinken said.

“You know they’ve been banned!” Davidson said.

Explodes over ‘tens of billions’ of US taxpayer dollars sent to Taliban after Afghanistan withdrawal

“I would be happy to see any information you have on this matter. I am not aware of any US citizen who has been banned.”

“I have the emails. I have pictures of US citizens with blue passports who were at the airport waiting to depart and had clearance to a safe third country to depart to, and the order came from the US government. Was that the case? The State Department?” Davidson asked.

Blinken’s testimony came three months after the committee voted along party lines to recommend his detention Contempt of CongressWhen he refused to appear to testify again about Afghanistan’s withdrawal in 2021.

Republicans released a lengthy report in September highlighting that State Department officials had no plan to remove Americans and allies while there were still forces there to protect them.

The report alleged that Ross Wilson, the US ambassador to Afghanistan at the time, expanded the embassy’s footprint rather than sending staff home despite warnings from military officials that a Taliban takeover was imminent.

“You ignored warnings of collapse from your own staff,” Foreign Affairs Chief Michael McCaul told Blinken.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Blinken defended Biden administration She added that every American who wanted to leave was given the opportunity to do so and thousands of Afghans were resettled abroad.

President-elect Donald Trump pledged to demand the resignation of every senior official “harmed by the disaster in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Democrats insist that the blame for the brutal end to the 20-year war lies with the agreement Trump negotiated with the Taliban on US withdrawal.