Hawley to introduce bill to create select committee investigating Afghanistan withdrawal

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FIRST ON FOX: Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, is introducing a bill to create a select Senate committee to investigate President Biden’s deadly Afghanistan withdrawal.

Hawley will be introducing a resolution to the upper chamber on Wednesday to establish a Senate Select Committee on the Afghanistan Withdrawal.

"Joe Biden is desperate to evade responsibility for his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan but the American people deserve better," Hawley told Fox News Digital.

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is introducing a Senate resolution to establish a select committee investigating President Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. (Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS)

"They deserve to know why the Administration ignored warnings that Kabul could collapse, why they delayed evacuating Americans until it was too late, and why they failed to protect our service members or even vet Afghan evacuees before they came to the United States," the Missouri Republican continued.

"My bill will make sure the American people get the answers – and accountability – they deserve," he added.

According to the bill’s text exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, the committee will be made up of 20 senators from both sides of the aisle and would have subpoena power.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the left, President Joe Biden, in the middle, and First Lady Jill Biden look on as as a carry team moves a transfer case with the remain of Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind., during a casualty return at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021, for the 13 service members killed in the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 26.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The legislation would bar U.S. officials from withholding any information on the withdrawal from the committee, including information that is under executive privilege, classified, or behind attorney-client privilege.

Hawley’s resolution would also require the new select committee to hold open hearings in the interest of transparency to the public probing the president’s national security advisor, secretaries of defense and state, ground commanders, and other key officials.

The Senate majority and minority leaders would both receive two committee picks themselves. They will also pick the co-chairs of the committee.

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Taliban fighters celebrate the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022.  (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

The chairs and ranking members of analogous committees — the Senate Committees on Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Select Committee on Intelligence — will also pick two members each.

Under Hawley’s resolution, the new select committee would investigate the intelligence available during the withdrawal — including dissenting views — as well as the Biden administration’s sluggish response time to getting the withdrawal underway.

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Additionally, the committee would look into whether the Biden administration sought to get evacuees out en masse at the expense of prioritizing American citizens and service members. 

It will also investigate and report on the Americans left behind in Afghanistan after the withdrawal as well as the Biden administration’s claims that no U.S. citizens were abandoned in the Taliban-controlled country.