Kabul (Washington Insider Magazine) -A chorus of bipartsan members of the House of Representatives criticized Peter Meijer (R-MI) and Seth Moulton (D-MA) for making a clandestine trip to Afghanistan on Aug. 24 to observe U.S. evacuation efforts, multiple news outlets reported.”
Their unapproved journey went against the requests of the Departments of State and Defense, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi told multiple media outlets.
Both Meijer and Moulton are military veterans who served in Iraq, National Public Radio reported.
“We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement obtained by British-based news outlet Independent.
They added that as members of Congress, that they “have a duty to provide oversight on the executive branch.”
The U.S. has evacuated more than 80,000 people since Aug. 14 when the Taliban retook control over Kabul and seized power in the war-ridden country.
Pelosi said she previously knew of the trip but decided against making it public information so as not to endanger the two lawmakers, according to NBC news. She later condemned the actions, saying that they were “deadly serious.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in an interview with Fox News said that while the trip “put people in jeopardy”, that he understood why the lawmakers wanted to make the trip.
He outlined that he has attempted to dissuade other members from making the trip over.
“I explained to them that I don’t think they should,” he said at his weekly news conference. “I think it creates a greater risk. You’ve got enough Americans over there that could be held hostage. They’d make a point out of a member of Congress,” he told Fox.
He continued: “I think you take military away from doing their job of getting as many Americans out as we can.”
Further criticism poured in from various others bipartisan lawmakers, as well as from former CIA analyst and FBI Senior Intelligence Advisor Phillip Mudd.
Mudd made the point that the men had went around their leadership to “bypass Disneyland and take an Instagram trip to Afghanistan because they want some eye candy for a bunch of constituents,” in an interview with CNN.
Mudd called upon Pelosi and McCarthy to remove the congressmen from their committees and called the trip “reprehensible.”
U.S. officials told the Associated Press that the State Department and U.S. Armed Forces had to divert resources and time to accommodate the congressmen. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby reacted to the visit during a press briefing on Aug. 25, saying, “they [the two lawmakers] certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day” and that the government should not encourage “VIP visits” at this time, NBC reported.
