Sen. Joni Ernst blasts the Biden-Harris administration for mistakenly sending $293 million to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, calling for accountability in the face of a glaring oversight that could benefit terrorists.
Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst criticized the Biden-Harris administration on Friday for mistakenly sending at least $293 million in aid to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A July report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that State Department bureaus failed to properly vet the recipients of $293 million in aid provided to Afghanistan in 2022, raising concerns that the Taliban may have benefitted from the funds. In her letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ernst called the error “unacceptable” and demanded immediate corrective action.
“After leaving billions in cutting-edge military equipment behind during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have now handed the Taliban $293 million in cold, hard cash,” Ernst stated. “The American people deserve better than the complete amateur hour occurring at the White House and State Department. I’m demanding accountability.”
Ernst emphasized in the letter that this failure has increased the risk of terrorist and terrorist-affiliated individuals and entities illegally benefiting from the administration’s spending in Afghanistan. The State Department had previously admitted to SIGAR that it failed to comply with proper document retention and vetting requirements for aid recipients, resulting in the questionable distribution of $293 million.
In response to these concerns, Ernst introduced a bill in 2023 that would require the U.S. government to track and publicly disclose any federal funds sent to organizations in Russia and China. Her office has since amended the bill to include other entities like the Taliban.
“The blood, and now the taxes, of American citizens are in the hands of the Taliban thanks to the Biden-Harris administration, which should be sanctioning rather than subsidizing the terror group’s activities. This lack of accountability and abuse of taxpayer money is grossly unacceptable,” Ernst wrote in her letter.
Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration has delivered a total of $2.8 billion in humanitarian and development aid to the region. However, reports have surfaced indicating that aid has not been properly tracked or delivered in certain cases, raising concerns that some funds may have been diverted to the Taliban or other extremist groups.
Three years after the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan has largely reverted to the state it was in prior to the U.S.’ 20-year intervention, with the Taliban seizing control and being accused of imposing authoritarian rule and committing widespread human rights abuses, particularly against women. Despite President Biden’s claims that al-Qaeda had not returned to Afghanistan, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks has resurfaced in the region with the Taliban’s permission. There is currently no indication that U.S. forces will return to the region in the near future.
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