POMPEO: Thwarted ISIS Election Day Terror Plot Was Direct Result of Biden-Harris' Afghanistan Withdrawal Debacle

The Biden-Harris Administration’s failed ability to lead has put our entire country at risk.  This danger was recently revealed with the foiling of an Election Day terror plot that was to be carried out by an Afghan national, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who had been granted access to the United States following the Administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.  These threats to our nation are due to this Administration’s incompetence, and they continue to mount.  To meet them, even greater vigilance and commitment to maintaining our security will be necessary.

This total national security failure is a damning indictment of the Biden-Harris Administration’s slipshod approach.  It began with the decision to execute a politically timed, botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan without proper planning or protocols to evacuate both American civilians and our Afghan allies, who would be at the mercy of the Taliban’s medieval brutality once U.S. forces left the country (something the ACLJ has been exposing through a FOIA lawsuit).  This led to a chaotic rush for the exit, creating the conditions for the tragic act of terror that took the lives of 13 American service members.

It also forced our Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to execute a mass evacuation of our Afghan allies, which meant DHS had to process tens of thousands of Afghan civilians into our country in a short period of time.  President Biden claimed that these civilians would all be properly vetted, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated these Afghan migrants would undergo a “multi-layered, multi-agency screening and vetting process.” None of it was true.

Instead, Afghans without paperwork or proper identification were allowed to self-validate that they were who they claimed to be.  The screenings that did occur “didn’t include an assessment of the individual’s ties to the U.S.”  A 2022 Defense Department Inspector General Report indicated that this process had allowed “50 Afghan personnel in[to] the United States with information in DoD records that would indicate potentially significant security concerns.”  This evacuation was presented to the American people as an operation to reward America’s Afghan allies who had helped keep American soldiers, contractors, and civilians safe while properly vetting all incoming migrants before they were allowed into the country.  Instead, what Biden and Harris delivered was a slapdash vetting process with clear flaws that allowed dangerous individuals to come into our country undetected.

Much like the withdrawal itself, what was promoted as a total success was a dangerous failure that put Americans at risk. Tawhedi, the terrorist suspect arrested, was one of the many Afghan civilians who were improperly vetted.  He had been granted a special immigrant visa (SIV) despite never being vetted or approved.  Worse, DHS has claimed that he had undergone “recurrent” vetting as part of his humanitarian parole under the original evacuation protocols.  Somehow, this “recurrent” vetting did not catch his ties to ISIS.

We should applaud the FBI’s good work in catching this terrorist, but we cannot forget that he should never have been in the United States in the first place.  None of our actual Afghan allies should have needed to be rapidly evacuated from Afghanistan at all.  It was Biden and Harris’ failed withdrawal that created the conditions that necessitated this mass evacuation and forced a complex situation to become an incredibly dangerous one, both for Americans there on the ground and now for American citizens here at home.

We should also remember that while the FBI managed to catch this terrorist, there are likely so many more criminals and bad actors who have entered our country that we don’t even know about yet due to the Biden-Harris Administration’s lax approach to security matters in our immigration policies.  Congress needs to step in, demand answers, and hold the Biden-Harris Administration accountable. This is a very real threat for all Americans, and it will remain after this Administration’s tenure is complete.

Biden and Harris’ past and present incompetence continues to introduce greater risk to America’s national security.  They reversed President Trump’s border policies on Day One, and now more criminals are crossing into our country than ever before.  They shut down the Trump Administration’s China Initiative, which countered the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) espionage operations here in the United States, and the CCP has since stepped up its efforts to spy on our military bases and influence our elections.  Institutions like the FBI do excellent work countering radical terror plots every day, but they can only do so much.  America is not impregnable, and the risk of terror attacks remains very real. The unserious governance by the Biden-Harris teams has needlessly increased this risk in the pursuit of politically motivated goals.  It is deplorable, and the American people deserve better.