State Department misses subpoena deadline to provide Afghanistan cable to House GOP

The State Department on Wednesday violated a congressional Republican subpoena to hand over a sensitive diplomatic cable about the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

The subpoena was issued late last month by chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and is part of Republican efforts to investigate the Biden administration over the chaotic and deadly pullout from Afghanistan at the end of August 2021. 

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement to The Hill that, “​​Discussions with the committee about next steps are ongoing,” and said Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to brief the chairman and the committee next week on the contents of the dissent cable without providing the actual document.  

Blinken had earlier told the chairman that he opposed providing the cable that was sent through the State Department’s Dissent Channel and that reportedly documents at least 23 U.S. Embassy Kabul diplomats raising in July urgent alarm that the Afghan government was at risk of collapsing under threat from the Taliban.

Blinken said he opposed providing the cable to protect the integrity of the Dissent Channel, a sensitive communication mechanism that allows diplomats to raise grave concerns about U.S. foreign policy issues that are directly raised to the secretary and other senior State Department officials.

The secretary’s reasoning is being supported by the American Foreign Service Association, the labor union for foreign service officers. 

McCaul, however, has rejected that reasoning. 

“We have told the State Department repeatedly that a briefing or summary does not in any way satisfy the subpoena,” McCaul said in a statement to The Hill on Thursday morning. “I am currently discussing next steps with my staff and House legal counsels to decide on what action to take if the State Department continues to refuse to comply with the subpoena despite their legal obligation to do so.”

It’s not clear what steps the chairman will take in response to the State Department’s failure to supply the cable. 

Following the violation of a congressional subpoena, the committee can hold a vote on a resolution to hold the recipient of the subpoena in contempt of Congress.

That resolution would then have to be voted on by the full House of Representatives and act as a referral to the Department of Justice for consideration of possible prosecution. 

Yet the committee is not obligated to take that course of action and the chairman could seek to find other pressure points on the State Department related to its pursuit of attaining the cable. 

–Updated on April 20 at 12:09 p.m.