McCaul, HFAC Republican Members Demand State Department Comply with SIGAR

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Republican members of the committee sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken following previous efforts to demand the State Department comply with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) regarding oversight on humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

“Despite this request and additional, repeated engagement from the chairman, members, and staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the State Department continues to ignore congressional demands for the department to cooperate with SIGAR’s oversight of ongoing humanitarian and development assistance programs in Afghanistan…this is the ‘least cooperative State Department’ that SIGAR has worked with since the creation of the office in 2008. The department’s subversion of congressionally mandated oversight is highly disappointing and unacceptable,” wrote the members.

 

The full text of the letter can be found here and below.

 

Dear Secretary Blinken, 

We write to follow up on the December 1, 2022 letter from Chairman McCaul regarding the State Department’s refusal to comply with requests from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

On December 1, 2022, Chairman McCaul sent a letter to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) demanding that the Administration immediately reverse course and reinstate compliance with SIGAR. In response, USAID again began engaging with SIGAR regarding oversight of ongoing assistance to Afghanistan. However, despite this request and additional, repeated engagement from the chairman, members, and staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the State Department continues to ignore congressional demands for the department to cooperate with SIGAR’s oversight of ongoing humanitarian and development assistance programs in Afghanistan.

On November 14, 2023, SIGAR John Sopko testified to the committee that the State Department continues to subvert SIGAR’s oversight authority, adding that this is the “least cooperative State Department” that SIGAR has worked with since the creation of the office in 2008. The department’s subversion of congressionally mandated oversight is highly disappointing and unacceptable.

Mr. Sopko’s testimony revealed an ongoing pattern of obstruction by the State Department. Mr. Sopko’s testimony established that the State Department ordered employees not to talk to SIGAR, consistently delayed scheduling meeting requests, denied SIGAR access to “sensitive” and “internal” documents, refused for two and a half years to schedule a meeting between Mr. Sopko and Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West, and refused to respond to at least 30 outstanding requests for information, several of which have been pending for over a year, and half of which are simple document requests.

This obstruction, despite repeated efforts by both SIGAR and Congress to encourage the State Department to comply with SIGAR’s oversight efforts, are a flagrant violation of federal law (P.L. 110-181 § 1229) and run contrary to President Biden’s stated commitments to transparency and accountability. It is unacceptable for the State Department to continue to refuse to cooperate with SIGAR.

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