House Republicans Ask Attorney General Garland to Investigate former Afghan President: ‘A Coward and Grifter’

Sajjad Hussain/Getty Images

House Republicans are demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland investigate allegations that Afghanistan’s former president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country with $169 million in cash.

“Reports indicate that Ghani in fact had so much looted money with him when he fled Afghanistan that not all of it would fit in his helicopter, and that he was forced to leave money lying on the tarmac,” the group wrote in a Tuesday letter to Garland. “The amount and nature of his flight from Afghanistan raises the specter that he illegally and corruptly embezzled these funds from U.S. assistance intended for the Afghan people’s welfare and defense.”

Noting the United States spent $145 billion on Afghanistan’s reconstruction in addition to $837 billion on the war effort, they said it was “imperative that corrupt foreign government officials not be permitted to personally enrich themselves with U.S. taxpayer money.” They also took aim at Ghani’s leadership, saying his “reckless and cowardly actions … contributed to the speed with which the Taliban took over the country.”

The letter was signed by Reps. James Comer (KY), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, and Glenn Grothman (WI), the ranking Republican on Oversight’s national security subcommittee. The duo closed the letter by asking whether Garland was looking into the reports, and whether the Justice Department had insight into whether the alleged money came from U.S. funding for the country. They also asked what the department was planning to do “to bring him to justice.”

The allegations against Ghani began with his country’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, after Ghani’s August 15 flight from Afghanistan to the United Arab Emirates, where he is being hosted on humanitarian grounds.

The former Afghan president denied the allegations last week in a statement published on Facebook. “If I had stayed in Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan would have witnessed the president hanged once more,” Ghani said. “I came just with my clothes, and I was not even able to bring my library.”

The missive from House Republicans could represent a fresh angle in some of the investigations they are likely to pursue related to Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called separately last week for Congress impeach President Joe Biden if he left “one American behind” in the country, a scenario that appeared increasingly likely on Tuesday after the president’s announcement that he would stick to an August 31 deadline for American troops to be out of the country.

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