Vice President Kamala Harris has claimed to have played an integral role in the chaotic and deadly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021, an evacuation operation that she has labeled a success despite the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and the wounding of dozens more in a suicide bombing.

House Republicans disagree with that assessment and have been thoroughly investigating the botched withdrawal effort, and now have subpoenaed the testimony of Secretary of State Antony Blinken as part of the probe, Fox News reported.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's subpoena of Blinken, which is backed by a threat of being held in contempt of Congress, was issued after multiple attempts by the committee to arrange a voluntary appearance by the secretary were unsuccessful.

Secretary of State subpoenaed

On Tuesday, Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) announced that, after initially requesting a voluntary meeting in May, he has now formally subpoenaed Sec. Blinken to testify about the Afghanistan withdrawal during a Sept. 18 hearing or else "face contempt."

"The Committee is holding this hearing because the Department of State was central to the Afghanistan withdrawal and served as the senior authority during the August non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO)," McCaul wrote in a letter to Blinken. "As Secretary of State throughout the withdrawal and NEO, you were entrusted to lead these efforts and to secure the safe evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies."

"In testimony before the Committee, current and former State Department officials have confirmed that you served as the final decisionmaker for the Department on the withdrawal and evacuation," the chairman continued. "You are therefore in a position to inform the Committee’s consideration of potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal, including potential reforms to the Department’s legislative authorization."

McCaul proceeded to outline the several attempts made by the committee to arrange a voluntary appearance by Blinken, and wrote, "The Committee has provided extraordinary accommodation in its multiple requests and communications seeking to finalize a date in line with your schedule. To date, the Department has yet to provide any potential dates for your appearance."

"In view [of] the Department’s continued delay and unresponsiveness to the Committee’s repeated requests for a specific hearing date, pursuant to the provisions of House Rule XI, clause 2(m), the Committee hereby transmits a subpoena compelling you to testify at a hearing before the Committee on September 19, 2024, at 10:00 am," he added.

State Department says Blinken subpoena is "disappointing"

In response to the subpoena, Reuters reported that a spokesman for Sec. Blinken, Matthew Miller, said the secretary had been unable to testify on the committee's proposed dates and that "reasonable alternatives" had been counterproposed by the State Department to try to comply with the committee's requests.

"It is disappointing that instead of continuing to engage with the Department in good faith, the Committee instead has issued yet another unnecessary subpoena," the spokesman continued.

Miller further claimed that Blinken has already testified before Congress 14 times about the Afghanistan withdrawal, including four times previously before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and that the Department has provided the committee with high-level briefings, transcribed interviews with senior officials, and upwards of 20,000 pages of relevant documents.

Harris said she was the "last person in the room" for the Afghanistan withdrawal decision

While Sec. Blinken is certainly responsible for the State Department's role in the fatal fiasco that marked the end of the 20-year Afghanistan War, the ultimate responsibility rests with President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris, who previously confirmed that she was the "last person in the room" when Biden made the fateful final decision to withdraw all U.S. forces, according to The Washington Post.

Yet, there are also real questions about just how involved and influential Harris truly was, as anonymous sources offer different takes on the matter.

Regardless, given that Biden is now effectively the president in absentia after ending his re-election bid in July, it falls to Harris as the top administration official to defend the grossly mismanaged Afghan evacuation operation that ended with more than a dozen U.S. Marines killed and dozens more wounded in a suicide bombing that could have been prevented, to say nothing of the Taliban's return to power amid the hasty U.S. exit.