House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul is preparing his committee to move forward with a contempt of Congress charge against Secretary of State Antony Blinken as soon as May 24 after the State Department is expected to blow past a deadline to hand over a key document related to the August 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

The committee is specifically seeking a classified dissenting cable that U.S. State Department employees sent prior to the Taliban‘s takeover on July 13, 2021. The cable warned about a ‘deteriorating’ security situation’ and urged the immediate evacuation of allies, a warning that the Biden administration did not heed, say Republicans. 

Blinken is expected to miss the deadline of 6pm ET Thursday May 11 to hand over the document or legal proceedings would be immediately started against him.

McCaul told DailyMail.com Thursday that the proceedings could begin as soon as May 24.

‘We’ve given them ample time. Three extensions of time we tried to work this out, but unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that that’s going to work and the next step will be to move to contempt proceedings,’ McCaul said.

‘We plan to have a meeting of my committee on May 24, to hold the Secretary in contempt, and move that to the floor for a full vote by the House of Representatives.’

The chairman also called it ‘interesting’ that it would be the ‘first time in history’ that a secretary of state has ever been held in contempt by Congress.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Thursday afternoon during a press briefing ahead of the deadline that the department would ‘continue to engage’ with the committee, but there were no updates to share.

‘We will continue to engage with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and discuss with them on their requests. As I have said before, the department has already offered a classified briefing and a summary of the dissent channel cable, as well as the department’s response. We believe that this information has been sufficient to meet what the committee has requested thus far.’

 In August 2021, 13 U.S. service members and 170 others were killed near the Hamid Karzai International Airport after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive. 

Additionally, thousands of U.S. citizens and allies of the United States who were unable to quickly evacuate were left stranded in the country after the Taliban quickly took over the capital of Kabul. 

The committee led by McCaul is investigating the Biden administration’s role in the deadly withdrawal, which he has previously called a ‘stunning failure’ of leadership. 

‘American people and the veterans and the Gold Star families are right to know what the thinking was in the embassy at the time to take the extraordinary measure to dissent from the policy,’ McCaul told DailyMail.com.

He added that he does not ‘particularly relish’ moving forward with legal proceedings, but it’s not a political statement because he is an advocate for veterans and the Gold Star families. 

‘We also want to see Secretary Blinken’s response to the dissenting cable to see what the state of mind was a month before the debacle and the collapse of Afghanistan which culminated in the killing of 13 service men and women,’ he continued.

In a letter to Blinken last Friday, obtained by DailyMail.com, McCaul, R-Texas, wrote that as part of the committee’s investigation, Blinken must hand over the cable in its entirety by May 11.

His request comes after a subpoena was issued to Blinken on March 28 requesting the ‘dissent cable’ along with other documents and Biden administration communications on the withdrawal.

The department provided an April 27 classified briefing, which Republicans on the committee have said did not fulfill the many demands they outlined.

A State Department spokesperson slammed the move by McCaul in a statement last week. 

‘It’s unfortunate that despite having received a classified briefing on the dissent channel cable as well as a written summary, that the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues to pursue this unnecessary and unproductive action,’ spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

‘Nevertheless, we will continue to respond to appropriate oversight inquiries and provide Congress the information it needs to do its job while protecting the ability of State Department employees to do theirs,’ Patel added in a statement.

However, McCaul writes in the letter that the information turned over to the committee from the State Department has been ‘insufficient.’

‘The Department provided the Committee a roughly one-page summary of the dissent cable as well as a summary of the Department’s official response that was just under one page in length,’ says McCaul. 

‘The Department has confirmed that the original dissent cable totaled four pages in length, meaning that the summary represented a 75% reduction of the original cable.’ 

As a result, the agency is ‘now in violation of its legal obligation to produce these documents and must do so immediately.’

‘As noted above, should the Department fail to comply with its legal obligation, the Committee is prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating a civil enforcement proceeding.’ 

If Blinken is held in contempt of Congress, President Biden’s Department of Justice would have the option to move forward with legal proceedings – but it is unlikely it would take action against him. 

Other cabinet-level secretaries that have been held in contempt of Congress – including Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder – but never in history has a secretary of state.

McCaul has pushed back the deadline for Blinken to comply with the subpoena multiple times.

The first deadline was April 1, then April 21, May 1 and now May 11 following discussions with the State Department.

The chairman also accused the Biden administration of ‘misleading the public’ with the release of several ‘summarizing’ documents related to the withdrawal. 

Sen. Ron Johnson accused Antony Blinken of telling a ‘boldface lie’ to Congress about his communications with Hunter Biden after it his emails with the first son were revealed. 

The Wisconsin Republican revealed that Blinken, when he was still working for the Biden campaign in December 2020, had come in to sit for a transcribed interview with his team. He was then aiming for the secretary of State job, a Senate-confirmed position.  

‘Now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied boldface to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden,’ Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. 

‘My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in, tell them to preserve their records. You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden.’ 

Asked if he believed Blinken lied under oath, Johnson said: ‘Yes, he did.’ 

‘He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was a[n] employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well,’ Johnson continued. 

The Wisconsin Republican said Blinken needs to be subpoenaed, but without Democrat support he would not have the authority to do so. 

‘If he wants to proclaim his innocence, I doubt he’ll do that, but he must and she must preserve their records, their personal emails. When you get to the bottom of this, we need to show how corrupt these individuals are.’ 

The Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group, obtained a trove of emails from Blinken during his time in the Obama administration showing Blinken and Hunter Biden writing to each other and setting up personal meetings through his private AOL account during his time as deputy secretary of state. 

Emails obtained by Fox News showed that Blinken met with Hunter Biden at the State Department in 2015 while Hunter was on the board of Burisma. 

Emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan have long had contact with the first son. On multiple occasions, Hunter forwarded communications about setting up meetings with Blinken to fellow board members of Burisma.  

Meanwhile, Mike Morell last week told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked by Blinken – who at the time was a senior member of the Biden campaign – to help discredit the laptop reporting.

Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2012 to 2013. He retired from the CIA in September 2013. 

He coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden‘s laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden‘s presidential campaign.

The Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordan, is currently investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as the Biden family businesses.

Morell ‘recently’ conducted a transcribed interview with Jordan’s team and was asked about the Biden campaign’s response to the laptop.

The laptop, which had been left in a Delaware repair store, was touted by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, as providing evidence of supposed corruption among the Biden family.

The Biden campaign said the efforts to publicize the contents of the laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The laptop included explicit photos of the troubled Hunter Biden naked, with prostitutes, and taking drugs, as well as multiple emails and texts between the 53-year-old and his father.

Morell said that he was asked by Blinken to rally former intelligence chiefs to agree that the laptop looked like a smear campaign.

He carried out ‘a little bit of my own research,’ and then reached out to retired CIA senior operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos for assistance in compiling the letter.

The letter was ultimately signed by 51 former intelligence officials, including himself and four other former CIA directors, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta.

The letter was published by Politico five days after The New York Post first reported on the contents of the laptop.

The headline for Politico’s story, on October 19, 2020, was: ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former officials say.’

The letter alleged that The New York Post story ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’ 

Several media outlets, including DailyMail.com, have since confirmed the contents of the laptop and that it belonged to Hunter Biden. 

Joe Biden used the letter during the October 22 debate against Donald Trump, saying he thought the reporting around his son’s abandoned computer was the work of Russia.

Morell was thanked for his work in coordinating the letter, with Steve Ricchetti, chairman of the Biden campaign, telephoning him after the debate to say thank you.

He was then said to be in consideration for the role of CIA director – a job that ultimately went to William Burns.

Morell, who has been a consultant, strategist, lecturer and author since his resignation almost a decade ago, said he was never formally in talks for the role.

On Thursday, Jordan and Michael Turner, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Blinken requesting his communications with Morell around the laptop.

They issued a statement accusing Morell and the other intel chiefs of ‘concerted effort to minimize and suppress’ information harmful to the Biden campaign. 

‘Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election,’ they wrote. 

‘Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans. 

‘This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.’