Exclusive: McCaul claims ex-ambassador faked COVID test after Afghanistan withdrawal
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House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
AUSTIN, Texas — House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) alleged that the former acting ambassador to Afghanistan prioritized his own evacuation ahead of embassy staff.
Why it matters: McCaul's comments during an exclusive interview with Axios at the Texas Tribune Festival come just ahead of the Foreign Affairs panel's release of a report on the widely criticized August 2021 evacuation.
- The report alleges that the envoy — Ross Wilson — directed an employee to obscure the fact that he'd tested positive for COVID so he could fly back to the U.S. from Doha following the evacuation in violation of U.S. travel restrictions.
- "Ambassador Wilson had an employee fake his COVID test so he could fly back to the United States immediately," a portion of the report obtained by Axios states, citing testimony gathered by the Foreign Affairs panel.
Update: In a statement on Monday, Wilson said "this allegation is false."
- "I tested positive for COVID in the early hours of 8/31/2021 at the Doha arrivals facility to which incoming passengers were sent for testing. I asked no one to take a COVID test for me," Wilson said.
The big picture: McCaul said the report also found that Wilson went on vacation in July without solidifying evacuation plans, even as the Pentagon and Intelligence community were recommending against a full military withdrawal.
- He accused Wilson of ignoring warnings from more than 20 State Department employees "saying, 'We're in danger here. The Taliban is coming.'"
- "And they were right, because that's exactly what happened," he continued.
Zoom in: McCaul also took aim at the Biden administration's overall handling of the withdrawal.
- The report states that as late as Aug. 14, when the Taliban surrounded Kabul, the White House still had not determined who would be eligible for evacuation or where evacuees would go.
- "So you can imagine the chaos that ensued because there was no plan of evacuation in place, no no operation of evacuation in place at the time," McCaul said.
- The handling of Afghanistan "empowered our enemies," McCaul said, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine six months later.
The other side: "Chairman McCaul's latest partisan report is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start," White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang told Axios.
- "As we have said many times, ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result," she added.
- Wilson told CBS News in August of 2021 that the the embassy had "put out repeated warnings" to Americans for months before the withdrawal urging them to "Leave now. Leave immediately."
- The White House has repeatedly defended Biden's decision to withdraw while acknowledging that aspects of the evacuation were flawed.
The bottom line: McCaul said he hoped the report's findings would deter the U.S. from moving forward with what he characterized as an ill-advised plan to withdraw troops from Iraq.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to add Amb. Wilson's denial.
