White House Accused of ‘Holiday News Dump’ on Release of Afghanistan Report: ‘This Was Sent to Us About 10 Minutes Before the Briefing Began’
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was accused of facilitating a “holiday news dump” by CBS News’ senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe during a Thursday press briefing, with O’Keefe expressing frustration over the Biden administration’s sudden release of a report on its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
O’Keefe was the first reporter to ask a question after Kirby’s offered an initial summary of the report, and spared no feelings in his lead-off at-bat:
So John, thank you for doing this, but I think I speak on behalf of my colleagues in this room, and we want the record to reflect that this was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began, with little notice, and it’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump, you releasing this at the beginning of the high holidays and after months of requests from Republicans and the broader public.
So why today? And is this all we get? And is this a response to the studies that were done by the agencies, or is this considered a summary of them?
Kirby responded by characterizing the report as the administration’s attempt to summarize the findings of the various agencies that participated in the withdrawal, which remain classified.
“We think that that was the responsible thing to do, and what you’re seeing today is the result, and the culmination of an awful lot of work, Ed,” said Kirby, before denying that there was any “effort here to try to obfuscate or try to bury something,” and insisting that it constituted a “fair summary” of the various agencies’ findings.
In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intention to completely withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year. That date was later moved up to September 1 after a Taliban offensive rendered the initial timeline unfeasible.
After the capital city of Kabul fell on August 15, the U.S. military conducted a chaotic airlift out of Hamid Karzai International Airport to evacuate U.S. troops, citizens, and allies in the country. A suicide bombing carried out at the airport during the evacuation killed 13 U.S. servicemen and dozens of Afghanis.
The attack, as well as perceived mismanagement on the administration’s part, resulted in the falling approval ratings for Biden and widespread condemnation of the withdrawal effort.
O’Keefe also challenged the report’s focus on the failings of the Trump administration, which had entered into an agreement with the Taliban that called for the U.S.’s withdrawal from the country.
“Nowhere in here does there appear to be any expression of accountability… by the president himself or others. Is there any, for what happened?” asked the reporter.
“The fact that we digested and distilled some of the key points of that [agency findings] and put it in a public document, the fact that I’m up here talking to you about it, I think shows you how seriously the president felt about learning lessons from this withdrawal,” replied Kirby.
