by Jennie Taer
America First Legal is demanding an investigation into the Biden administration regarding its withdrawal from Afghanistan and is requesting answers from a number of government agencies over the handling of evacuees, according to a letter and six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The group has asked the Department of Defense (D0D) acting inspector general for an investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, specifically into the reported “‘Kill List’ Given to the Taliban,” information revealing what the president knew from intelligence reports, details about the “abandoned equipment and assets” and about leaving Bagram air base, as well as information about the “effective deployment of US air force assets.”
In its letter to the DoD acting inspector general, the conservative organization pointed to a number of instances in the Aug. 17 Lead Inspector Generals report (LIG Report) that raise concerns about the administration’s handling of the withdrawal.
The report asserted that DoD officials were aware that the U.S. drawdown would result in the collapse of the Afghan government, but proceeded with the withdrawal anyway. After the U.S. began withdrawing troops and as the Taliban swiftly took control of Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and his government collapsed.
America First Legal board member and former Trump administration official Stephen Miller told the DCNF that the administration must provide information and cannot engage in a “cover up.”
“They [the Biden administration] have refused to provide transparent information to the American people,” Miller said. “I don’t think that a cover up would be sustainable, especially given the loss of life that has taken place and especially given the stranding of American citizens and the extent and the scope of the catastrophe that has unfolded.”
“How long it will take is a separate question, but we will eventually get answers,” he said. “There’s just no way to fathom the degree of deadly and just disastrous incompetence that we’ve seen from this administration.”
America First Legal’s FOIA requests ask for information from six other government agencies, including the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on the administration’s vetting of evacuees coming from Afghanistan.
In its request to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), America First Legal asked for records pertaining to the “screening, vetting, or processing for individuals seeking evacuation or resettlement out of Kabul, Afghanistan.”
Similar requests were made to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the State Department, and the DOJ asking for answers regarding background of evacuees over national security concerns.
The group has also asked CBP for all records regarding the “screening, vetting, or processing” of evacuees from July 1 to the processing date of the request and seeks records showing the total number of people “admitted and paroled” into the U.S. where an individual’s trip started “in Afghanistan, by nationality.”
Miller emphasized his opposition to the evacuation.
“The whole entire point of an evacuation is to evacuate your own citizens and permanent residents and those deemed a national security priority, not to evacuate people at random because they don’t wanna live in Afghanistan anymore,” he said.
“There’s 40 million people in Afghanistan. If our policy is to take everyone that doesn’t want to live there that’s going to be many many millions of people and so that’s obviously not an intelligible goal. That’s effectively what the Biden administration has done. They’ve airlifted out of the country at random,” Miller added.
The Biden administration says it’s evacuated over 120,000 people from Afghanistan and maintains that 100-200 Americans remain in country.
Many have raised concerns about the vetting process for Afghans evacuees and there’s reports that some individuals with criminal records or possible ties to terrorism have been evacuated from Afghanistan. A man who was previously convicted of rape and deported from the U.S. evacuated Afghanistan and entered the U.S., but was stopped at Dulles Airport, according to The Washington Times.
Please watch this important interview about the vetting (or lack thereof) of Afghan refugees.
Bottom line, we're not really vetting them before bringing them here – we can't do it this fast.
It's normally an 18-24 month process with 14 steps. Think there might be shortcuts now? https://t.co/S9dHc3axwM
— Ken Cuccinelli II (@KenCuccinelli) August 30, 2021
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Jennie Taer is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “Kabul Downtown” by Brian Hillegas. CC BY 2.0.
Vetting? What vetting?