ACLJ Files Lawsuit Against Biden Administration After Its Refusal To Answer Our FOIA Request Over Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal and Abandonment of Christians
President Biden and his team seem to have already moved on from the Afghanistan debacle, and they clearly want everyone else to do the same. Unfortunately for them, the ACLJ has no intention of forgetting the countless souls this Administration has left in harm’s way.
The ACLJ has taken action to make this President answer for this deadly American tragedy.
The Biden Administration’s exit strategy from Afghanistan, if there was a strategy at all, was an immediate and utter disaster. President Biden’s incompetence cost the lives of 13 U.S. servicemen and women, allowed the Taliban to take back control of the region, and placed countless Christians, women and girls, and American citizens in immediate danger.
We told you how we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Biden State Department, Department of National Intelligence, Department of Defense, and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), demanding answers regarding the Biden evacuation plan from Afghanistan and how it became such a catastrophe.
Our FOIA also specifically addressed the dangers to Christians and women in Afghanistan now that the Taliban is in control of the region:
The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The US Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge. All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum. They are fully reliant on God, who is the only One who can and will protect them.
The Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children. The people must mark their house with an “X” if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked, they will execute the entire family. If a married woman 25 years or older has been found, the Taliban promptly kill her husband, do whatever they want to her, and then sell her as a sex slave.
When asked about those left in harm’s way, Biden’s Press Secretary for the Pentagon John Kirby callously stated, “We have Americans that get stranded in countries all the time.”
This is the same flippant attitude the Biden Administration seemed to have regarding our FOIA. As has become their modus operandi, they chose to ignore our request, providing no information. Which is why we just filed a lawsuit against President Biden, citing violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Biden’s refusal to cooperate with our FOIA request has left us no other choice but to take his Administration to federal court in Washington, D.C.
As we stated in our lawsuit:
As of the date of this Complaint, the Defendants have failed to notify [the ACLJ] of any determination about whether they will comply with [the ACLJ’s] FOIA request, including the scope of records the Defendants intend to produce, or the scope of records they intend to withhold, and the reasons for any such determination – all clearly required by the FOIA.
As of the date of this Complaint, the Defendants have failed to produce any records responsive to the request and have not indicated when (or even whether) any responsive records will be produced, or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production – all as clearly required by the FOIA . . . The Defendants are unlawfully withholding records requested by the Plaintiff American Center for Law and Justice pursuant to the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552.
Clearly, the Biden Administration is dragging its feet in the hopes that this will all go away and they’ll get away with this, yet another disaster in just its first year. But be clear, Mr. President, the ACLJ is not going away.
The American people – not the least of which are the families of our troops killed in the bombing attack on the Kabul airport and the U.S. citizens currently trapped in Afghanistan – deserve to know why President Biden disregarded warnings from diplomats on the ground and his own Intelligence Community, causing so much chaos and devastation. This Administration’s handling of Afghanistan, and its attitude after the fact, has been nothing but disgraceful.
We now await the response from the Biden Administration. We are hopeful that the federal court will now force them to answer for their weakness and provide all requested records and information so we can finally see where the President’s Afghanistan “strategy” went wrong. It seems very likely that this entire shameful tragedy could have been avoided had the President listened to the proper advisors. Now President Biden must answer to the American people for his epic – and deadly – failure.