A former American diplomat literally called “BS” on the Biden administration, according to Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul.
McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been asking the Biden State Department since 2021 for a dissent cable from American embassy staff in Afghanistan in which those staffers expressed disagreement with the administration’s Afghanistan policy around the withdrawal process. The State Department has not turned over the cable, claiming that making it public could have a “chilling effect” on department employees.
. @RepMcCaul says a former ambassador is literally calling “bullshit” on the Biden administration’s coverup of a cable of dissent from Afghanistan in 2021 @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/oVEfN5yxMK
— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) March 23, 2023
McCaul shared a message from Ambassador Thomas Boyatt, who served as Ambassador to Burkina Faso from 1978-1980 and Colombia from 1980-1983. Boyatt was involved in a similar dispute in the 1970s under Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in which Kissinger refused to release a dissent cable written by Boyatt from Cyprus.
“In a statement he provided to the committee, he says that any claim provided by them to Congress that that would have a chilling effect, as your staff has claimed, is, and I quote him directly, ‘bullshit,'” McCaul told Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Not my words. That’s the ambassador.”
Boyatt added that Congressional oversight enables the executive branch to learn from mistakes. (RELATED: Marine Breaks Into Tears While Telling Congress Deadly Afghanistan Withdrawal Bombing Could Have Been Stopped)
Blinken would not commit during Thursday’s hearing to releasing the cable, despite McCaul and other members of the committee warning him that the department would be served with a subpoena if it does not comply with the request by the end of Monday. The dissent cable is just one of many documents the committee has requested from the State Department pertaining to the Afghanistan withdrawal that have not been turned over yet.