On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” CNN hosts Brianna Keilar and Jake Tapper stated that the Biden State Department is violating basic principles of oversight by refusing to release the diplomatic dissent cable on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the administration is blocking an investigation into a real issue to avoid something that will hurt them politically.
Keilar said, “[T]he administration [is] saying that, well, we’ve given them the information they need, as determined by the administration, though, that is being overseen, so that doesn’t quite square.”
Tapper responded, “Yeah, that’s not really how oversight works. The Oversight Committee — or in this case — House Foreign Affairs Committee, gets to decide what they want. And certainly, there is nothing untoward about wanting this dissent cable. Now, the best argument that the administration has is that they don’t want the diplomats who were candid in this dissent cable to have their careers dragged into the political arena. But there does seem to be a simple solution to that, which would be to redact their names so that the issues can come out. Look, whatever your position is on the war in Afghanistan or whether the U.S. should be there or President Biden or the like, there are obviously lessons that need to be learned from this withdrawal, hundreds of people lost their lives, 13 American servicemembers lost their lives, there is a dissent cable, this is legitimate work. Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) is not a firebrand, he is just doing his job.”
Keilar then stated, “And there is some political exposure for the Biden administration on this, right? That they would like to minimize, so that’s also something to keep in mind as they’re trying to minimize the oversight here.”
Tapper responded, “Yeah. Look, nobody likes oversight. That’s why people like to have Congress be controlled by the same party when you’re running a White House. But this is a legitimate function of Congress. And you can point to other investigations going on on Capitol Hill and question the legitimacy or not, but this is real.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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