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The
chairperson, Representative Michael McCaul, scheduled a
committee meeting next week to consider a contempt of Congress
charge against Secretary of State Antony Blinken over his
refusal to release the cable, sent by U.S. diplomats via the
department's "dissent channel". The channel allows State
Department officials to air concerns to supervisors.
The State Department will let McCaul and the committee's ranking
Democrat, Gregory Meeks, view a redacted version to protect the
identity of those using the dissent channel, Deputy Spokesperson
Vedant Patel told reporters.
In an interview on CNN, McCaul said the State Department's offer
to make the cables available was "a really significant step
forward". He said if the department agreed to allow the entire
committee to see the cables "then I think we've resolved a
litigation fight in the courts".
In a letter to McCaul, the department said it would make the
material available as soon as possible.
"The Department has engaged extensively with the Committee to
respond to your requests. We have provided numerous briefings,
thousands of pages of documents, and public testimony from the
Department’s senior leaders," the letter said, adding that it
was important to protect the dissent channel.
"The accommodations that the Department has provided to date are
extraordinary and, as stated in our prior correspondence,
already create a serious risk of chilling both future use of,
and future candor in, Dissent Channel cables," the letter said.
McCaul has launched an investigation into the withdrawal from
Afghanistan. Republicans - and some Democrats - say there has
never been a full accounting of the chaotic operation, in which
13 U.S. service members were killed at Kabul's airport.
McCaul has for months been seeking a "dissent channel" cable
sent in July 2021 that a Wall Street Journal article in August
2021 said warned top officials of the potential collapse of
Kabul soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Patricia Zengerle and Simon Lewis;
Editing by Alistair Bell, Lisa Shumaker and Marguerita Choy)
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