House Democrats Subpoena Trump’s Afghanistan Envoy
House Democrats Subpoena Trump’s Afghanistan Envoy
(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee subpoenaed the Trump administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation amid questions about the government’s plans to draw down U.S. forces in the country.
“I’m fed up with this administration keeping Congress and the American people in the dark on the peace process and how we’re going to bring this long war to a close,” panel Chairman Eliot Engel said in a statement Thursday.
Special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is being called to testify during an open hearing on Sept. 19.
“For months, we haven’t been able to get answers on the Afghanistan peace plan, and now the president is saying the plan is dead,” said Engel of New York. “We need to hear directly from the administration’s point person on Afghanistan to understand how this process went off the rails.”
Engel signed the subpoena after the State Department refused several requests to make Khalilzad available for briefings or testimony, according to a statement from the committee.
President Donald Trump revealed Saturday in a series of tweets that he had called off a meeting with the Taliban at Camp David after talks to end the war in Afghanistan fell apart. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, left the administration this week over clashes on foreign policy.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Flatley in Washington at dflatley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton
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