WASHINGTON, DC – Yesterday, America First Legal (AFL) filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to obtain critical information related to the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, including information about the safety and security vetting and screening of evacuees from Kabul. AFL filed these FOIA requests with the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security, to include U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Separately, AFL requested an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Defense to get to the bottom of the chaos behind the scenes of the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Biden Administration has claimed to have evacuated more than 123,000 people from Afghanistan. Of those 123,000, only 6,000 were American citizens, and the Biden Administration has failed to provide any meaningful information to the American people about the vetting and screening procedures it is using to ensure the safety of Americans or the legal authority it is using to admit people to the United States. Because the Biden Administration turned over control of the evacuation pathways to the Taliban and, by extension, al-Qaeda, generally speaking, only persons allowed by the Taliban to reach the airport were evacuated. Transparency and disclosure of the vetting and screening procedures used in the chaos of Afghanistan are critical.
Also, AFL has sent the DoD Inspector General an investigation request relating to the massive amounts of U.S. weapons, communications equipment, and sensitive data abandoned to the Taliban. Areas of requested inquiry include: (1) Why a list of Afghans who helped America was given to the Taliban, (2) Whether DoD made it clear to President Biden that the Afghan government would fall without extensive U.S. air support, (3) Who was responsible for preventing U.S. weapons and intelligence from falling to the Taliban, (4) What happened at Bagram Airbase, and (5) Why U.S. air assets were not effectively deployed against the Taliban to ensure a safe and orderly evacuation.
AFL is fighting for the answers American Citizens deserve.
Statement From former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker:
“The American people need total transparency into the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. We must know how these disastrous plans were developed and who at the highest levels of government was involved in engineering the plans that produced this chaos and heartbreak. The American people especially need to know which political appointees interfered with our brave soldiers executing any plan that could have saved American lives and assets,” Matthew Whitaker said.
Read the State Department OIG request here.
Read the Pentagon FOIA request here.
Read the CBP FOIA request here.
Read the DOJ FOIA request here.
Read the USCIS FOIA request here.
Read the DHS FOIA request here.
Read the ODNI FOIA request here.
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