{"id":1740542,"date":"2022-11-16T06:07:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T11:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1740542"},"modified":"2022-11-16T06:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T11:48:00","slug":"biden-admin-stonewalling-investigation-into-afghanistan-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-stonewalling-investigation-into-afghanistan-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin Stonewalling Investigation Into Afghanistan Spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-admin-stonewalling-investigation-into-afghanistan-spending%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1740542&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/ddcb1e82-ef72-4674-925f-0ad9cc40292e.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>President Biden&#8217;s job approval rating flipped upside down in the late summer of 2019, and has never recovered. \u00a0The point at which he lost the confidence of a majority of the American people is directly traceable to the debacle he oversaw in Afghanistan. \u00a0The president&#8217;s competence and credibility were gravely wounded during that avoidable lethal fiasco, and voters continue to give him low marks on his overall performance. \u00a0We&#8217;ll return to that political theme in a moment, but here&#8217;s an update related to the Afghanistan withdrawal and the administration&#8217;s Taliban policy. \u00a0We know that the president <a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/tipsheet\/guybenson\/2021\/09\/14\/blinken-admits-several-thousand-american-green-card-holders-stranded-in-afghanistan-n2595812\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">broke his word and left thousands<\/a> of American citizens, legal residents, and Afghan allies behind amid the deadly chaos. \u00a0Many of these people were left at the mercy of the terrorist organization that fully took over the country as soon as the US military fully departed. \u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>People have questions about how taxpayer dollars may have flowed to these terrorists &#8212; beyond the billions in military equipment <a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/tipsheet\/guybenson\/2021\/08\/30\/stunning-graphic-how-much-us-equipment-and-weaponry-the-taliban-now-controls-n2594943\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">we abandoned to them<\/a>, that is &#8212; and it seems the administration is not keen on allowing those answers to be known. \u00a0The <em>Free Beacon<\/em> reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" style=\"text-align: center;\">JUST IN: White House Won\u2019t Say How It Spent $1 Billion in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan &#8212; State Depart stonewalls watchdog investigation into taxpayer funds to Taliban&#8217;s Afghanistan <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3eOlxJWDNZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/t.co\/3eOlxJWDNZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Kredo0\/status\/1591180017975062528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">November 11, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"isPasted\">The State Department says it <strong>will not comply with a government watchdog\u2019s investigation into how more than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds was spent in Afghanistan since the Taliban terror group retook control of the country<\/strong>. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a government watchdog established in 2008 to perform oversight on America\u2019s $146 billion reconstruction project in the war-torn country, announced that<strong>\u00a0for the first time in its history, the State and Treasury Departments will not comply with its investigations&#8230;SIGAR says the Biden administration\u2019s refusal to cooperate with its investigation into the allocation of $1.1 billion in taxpayer funds since the Taliban regained power constitutes a &#8220;direct violation&#8221; of the watchdog group\u2019s congressional mandate.\u00a0<\/strong>The administration also is withholding evidence related to the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, as well as information about whether the State Department is complying with laws prohibiting the transfer of American funds to the Taliban. &#8220;<strong>No federal agency has challenged SIGAR\u2019s authority to conduct oversight of such programs until now<\/strong>,&#8221; the watchdog agency said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;The standoff is the latest controversy surrounding the Biden administration\u2019s botched 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, which left 13 Americans dead and thousands more stranded in the Taliban-controlled country,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/white-house-wont-say-how-it-spent-1-billion-in-taliban-controlled-afghanistan\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Adam Kredo writes<\/a>. \u00a0&#8220;The administration also has stonewalled congressional investigations into the matter, including probes into its decision to abandon around $7 billion worth of advanced American military equipment inside Afghanistan.&#8221; \u00a0The story notes that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sigar.mil\/about\/index.aspx?SSR=1\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Special Inspector General&#8217;s office<\/a> says this is the first act of non-compliance from any administration from either party over the course of its existence, which has spanned well over a decade. \u00a0More:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;After more than a decade of cooperation, State, and USAID have for months now refused to provide SIGAR with information and assistance needed for several audits and Congressionally mandated reviews&#8221; into the &#8220;collapse of the U.S.\u2010backed government in Afghanistan,&#8221; the report says. <strong>These agencies are also withholding information pertaining to their &#8220;compliance with laws and regulations prohibiting the transfer of funds to the Taliban.&#8221; A State Department official further &#8220;informed SIGAR that department staff have received internal direction to not engage with or speak to SIGAR without prior clearance from State legal counsel,&#8221;<\/strong> a directive that violates laws meant to protect government whistleblowers and protect SIGAR\u2019s investigation power, according to the report.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is outrageous and merits aggressive Congressional oversight, which might arrive in some form if Republicans take control of the House of Representatives when all the outstanding races are called, as is <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Nate_Cohn\/status\/1591807662324580354\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">believed<\/a> to be <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Redistrict\/status\/1591877535327223809\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">likely<\/a>. \u00a0A very narrow majority may produce any number of governing and whip count headaches, but control of committees is a straightforward and importance advantage of holding the majority of any size. \u00a0The fact that the House didn&#8217;t flip easily, and that the Senate will remain in Democratic hands, is a surprising blow to Republicans in Washington, who&#8217;d expected wave-level victories. \u00a0Incredibly, President Biden had one of the most successful first midterm elections of any modern-era American president, despite his own serious unpopularity and widespread economic discontentment. \u00a0Fox&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/elections\/2022\/midterm-results\/voter-analysis\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">voter analysis<\/a> (modernized and expansive exit polling) found that among last week&#8217;s electorate, Biden&#8217;s disapproval rating was 57 percent. \u00a0Yet his party suffered minimal losses. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As I <a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/tipsheet\/guybenson\/2022\/11\/10\/florida-a-red-riptide-beatdown-of-epic-historic-proportions-n2615677\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">wrote on Wednesday<\/a>, that&#8217;s an indictment of the opposition party, which was seen as so unpalatable to independents at the federal level that this swing group defied history and sided slightly with the party in power, of whose leader they lopsidedly disapprove. \u00a0Voters said they view the GOP as too extreme. \u00a0Many of those same independents flocked to familiar Republican governors, however. \u00a0<em>Types<\/em> of Republicans on the ballot vary, and such distinctions matter quite a lot. \u00a0Writing at <em>National Review<\/em>, Yuval Levin sounds stupefied by both major parties&#8217; manifest inability <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-message-of-the-midterms\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">to avoid actively repelling voters<\/a> beyond their respective bases:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But since the mid-\u201990s, we have had two minority parties.<strong>\u00a0Both are unpopular, each only wins by highlighting the other\u2019s weaknesses, and neither is doing much to expand its appeal.\u00a0<\/strong>At first, this meant that power would swing back and forth, leading each party to think it was on the verge of a long and grand new era of dominance after its victories, only to see it all fall apart just two years later. But now, it feels more like we are stuck in the middle, with a genuinely 50\u201350 politics. The last two presidential elections have come down to a few pockets of votes in each of a small number of states and each could easily have gone the other way. The last two years have seen the narrowest congressional majority in the history of our country. And although it won\u2019t be entirely clear for some time, it sure looks like Tuesday\u2019s midterms will result in majorities roughly as slim. <strong>Nominal control of one or both houses may shift, but nobody won power in this election. The public said \u201cno\u201d to what both parties offered, again<\/strong>&#8230;It would be easy to assume that the reason for this polarized deadlock is that there are almost no winnable voters left, and that Americans aren\u2019t willing to split their tickets anymore. But this is just not true. When the parties don\u2019t go out of their way to repel voters, they can win decent majorities. <strong>The reason such majorities have become rare is that both parties have worked hard to become repulsive to the median voter.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I had plenty to say about Donald Trump earlier, so I won&#8217;t subject you to more criticism of him here &#8212; but Levin makes some important points, if you&#8217;re interested in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-message-of-the-midterms\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">reading his full piece<\/a>. \u00a0I&#8217;ll leave you with a two points:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" style=\"text-align: center;\">This isn\u2019t going to happen. Republicans either adapt to mail-in voting and ballot harvesting or they don\u2019t win. California Republicans have been doing it for years, catch up. Adapt or die. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mA0nwwUc5u\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/t.co\/mA0nwwUc5u<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KatiePavlich\/status\/1592206157766168578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">November 14, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" style=\"text-align: center;\">A slight oversimplification, but basically right: The voters who decide elections in key states &#038; districts have demonstrated what sorts of Republicans they\u2019re willing\/eager to support, and what sorts they\u2019re not. GOP\/primary voters can either notice and win \u2014 or not, and not.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Guy Benson (@guypbenson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/guypbenson\/status\/1592463387442630659?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">November 15, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Biden&#8217;s job approval rating flipped upside down in the late summer of 2019, and has never recovered. \u00a0The point at which he lost the confidence of a majority of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1740545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1740545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}