(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday that will pave the way for Medicaid to pay for abortion services for people having to travel out of state, according to a senior Biden administration official.
The new directive will allow the secretary of health and human services to “invite states to apply for Medicaid waivers, so that states where abortion is legal could provide services to people traveling from a state where abortion may be illegal to seek services in their state,” the official said. Technically, these states would apply through what’s known as a “Medicaid 1115 waiver,” according to the official.
The official noted that when the White House looked into declaring a public health emergency for abortion and what that would allow the federal government to do, this change to Medicaid — an assistance program for low-income patients’ medical expenses — was one of the options. But the White House realized the president could also do it through an executive order instead, which he plans to do Wednesday, the official said.
Biden’s order will also direct the health and human services secretary to make sure “health care providers comply with federal non-discrimination laws so that women receive medically necessary care without delay,” according to the White House. That could include “providing technical assistance for health care providers who may be confused or unsure of their obligations in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs,” or providing other info and guidance to providers about their obligations and consequences of not complying with non-discrimination laws.
The order also will direct the health and human services secretary to improve research and data collection on maternal health outcomes, according to the White House.
Biden is expected to sign the order during the first meeting of a reproductive rights task force that he established in July in the wake of the United States Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which had legalized abortion nationwide nearly 50 years ago. The court’s historic ruling in June declared that there is no federal constitutional right to end a pregnancy, leading some states to ban abortions.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone in its investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News.
The sources told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone — like they did with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — are expected to engage in negotiations around any appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege.
The move to subpoena Cipollone signals an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 attack than previously known, following appearances by senior members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff before the grand jury two weeks ago.
Officials with the Justice Department declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
A representative for Cipollone could not be reached for comment.
Last month, Cipollone spoke to the House Jan. 6 select committee for a lengthy closed-door interview, portions of which have been shown during two of the committee’s most recent public hearings.
Cipollone spoke to the committee on a number of topics, including how he wanted then-President Donald Trump to do more to quell the riot on the day of the attack, and how Cabinet secretaries contemplated convening a meeting to discuss Trump’s decision-making in the wake of the insurrection.
In videotaped testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, Cipollone made it clear that he wanted Trump to intervene sooner while the attack was underway.
“I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now,” Cipollone said.
Committee members also questioned Cipollone regarding discussions among members of Trump’s Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment to possibly remove Trump from office in advance of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
(WASHINGTON) — A government watchdog group said Tuesday that the Pentagon “wiped” text messages from the cell phones of key Trump administration Defense Department officials after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and is now urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a “cross-agency investigation into the possible destruction of federal records.”
American Oversight, which describes itself as a nonprofit watchdog that uses public records requests to fight corruption, filed several Freedom of Information Act requests within days of Jan. 6, 2021, seeking text messages and other communications among senior Pentagon officials including acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, his chief of staff, Kash Patel, and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.
In March, the Pentagon filed court documents acknowledging that text messages belonging to those individuals had been deleted — but framed that action as standard operating procedure whenever an employee leaves the department.
“When an employee separates from DOD or Army he or she turns in the government-issued phone, and the phone is wiped,” the Pentagon wrote in response to American Oversight’s FOIA lawsuit. “For custodians no longer with the agency, the text messages were not preserved and therefore could not be searched.”
But in their letter to Garland on Tuesday, American Oversight accused the Pentagon of knowingly erasing records under active FOIA — and framed this deletion as another effort by these agencies to obscure the actions of administration officials.
“In short, DOD has apparently deleted messages from top DOD and Army officials responsive to pending FOIA requests that could have shed light on the actions of top Trump administration officials on the day of the failed insurrection,” American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer wrote.
Sawyer urged Garland to probe not only the Pentagon’s conduct, but also the U.S. Secret Service’s apparent deletion of their agents’ text messages.
“American Oversight accordingly urges you to investigate DOD’s actions in allowing the destruction of records potentially relevant to this significant matter of national attention and historical importance,” the letter said.
Reached for comment, Army spokesperson Col. Cathy Wilkinson told ABC News, “It is our policy not to comment on ongoing litigation.”
(NEW YORK) — The ability to access abortions in Kansas is not changing.
ABC News projects that voters on Tuesday rejected an amendment to the state constitution that would have specified “Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”
It was the first popular vote on abortion rights in nearly 50 years — and the first since the demise of Roe v. Wade. In reversing Roe in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion should be left to individual states.
A “yes” vote to approve the Kansas amendment would have effectively overridden a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling and would have cleared the way for GOP super-majorities in the Kansas legislature to enact more stringent abortion restrictions.
A “no” vote keeps the status quo, preserving Kansas as what advocates describe as an abortion rights refuge in a region where bans on the procedure have proliferated.
Kansans on Tuesday also voted in primaries for governor, secretary of state, the House and Senate, state attorney general, state treasurer and the state legislature. Polls closed at 9 p.m. ET.
On Friday, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab predicted that roughly 36% of Kansas voters would participate in the primary election — a higher number than past cycles.
Schwab’s office said the constitutional amendment about whether or not to bar abortion access had increased voter interest in the election.
(WASHINGTON) — After a series of delays and emotional protests, the Senate on Tuesday night approved a bill that will help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
The Senate began voting on the PACT Act around 5 p.m., with votes on three Republican amendments before a vote on final passage of the bill, which was 86-11. None of the proposed amendments passed.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor called the passage a “wonderful moment, especially for all the people who made this happen.”
Just before the legislation passed, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who helped lead the Democratic effort, could be heard saying “I’m so proud” to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jon Tester of Montana. The two embraced in a hug.
A group of Democrats were set to hold a press conference later Tuesday night following the vote.
The PACT Act had initially passed the Senate earlier this year. But after a quick fix in the House required the bill to be voted on again, 26 Republican senators changed their votes and blocked swift passage of the act last week — sparking outrage among Democrats and veterans groups.
Comedian and activist Jon Stewart has become the face of this legislation, joining veterans in protest outside the Capitol for the last several days. He’s harshly criticized Republicans — who in turn cited concerns about Democratic spending maneuvers — and demanded action from lawmakers.
“America’s heroes who fought in our wars outside sweating their a—- off with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments” while Republican senators were sitting “in the air conditioning walled off from any of it,” Stewart said during a press conference in front of the Capitol building on Thursday. “They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings.”
Stewart was in the chamber Tuesday night for the vote, along with about 50-75 vets and supporters of the bill. He is expected to join Democrats as they address reporters.
He sat above in the gallery and was seemingly overcome with emotion for a moment after the vote. He appeared to choke up while the clerk read the names of the Senators who voted yes.
When the vote was called, he grabbed his chest. “Hallelujah” and “yeah” were also shouted from observes in the gallery.
Republicans had said they did not object to the new funding for veterans in the proposal but wanted the opportunity to modify a so-called “budget gimmick” they say could be exploited by Democrats.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., has led the GOP group in opposition, insisting on an amendment to change language in the bill that he said could free up $400 billion in existing funds already being used for veterans by shuffling the money inside the budget to use for unrelated purposes.
“What matters to a veteran whose ill because of a toxic exposure is that the money is there to cover what he needs, that’s what he should be concerned about and that will be there,” Toomey said Tuesday. “What I am trying to limit is the extent that they could use a budget gimmick to reclassify spending and go on an unrelated spending binge.”
Republicans attempted to close this perceived budget loophole during a Tuesday night vote, but the amendment failed to pass.
Two other amendments from Sens. Rand Paul and Marsha Blackburn also failed. Paul’s amendment aimed to reduce aid to other countries besides Israel over the next 10 years to offset some of the bill’s costs, while Blackburn’s amendment proposed allowing toxic-exposed veterans to go directly into community care.
Schumer on the floor called Tuesday’s development “good news.”
“Our veterans across America can breathe a sigh of relief,” he said. “The treatment that they deserve and have been denied by the VA because of all kinds of legal barriers and presumptions will now be gone.”
ABC News’ Trish Turner contributed to this report.
Al Rai Al Aam/Feature Story News/Getty Images, FILE
(NEW YORK) — Osama bin Laden’s successor, who helped coordinate the 9/11 terror attacks, was killed by a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend.
President Joe Biden announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri, an al-Qaeda leader, was killed by two Hellfire missiles in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday.
Biden reported that there were no known civilian casualties.
“Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more. People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer,” Biden said, speaking from the White House on Monday night.
Al-Zawahiri had traveled back to Taliban-controlled Kabul to reunite with his family after U.S. troop withdrawal last August, according to U.S. intelligence, which began to track al-Zawahiri prior to the attack.
Nearly a year after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the country to Taliban-control and less international oversight, ABC News’ “Start Here” spoke to ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz about what al-Zawahiri’s death means for the United States.
START HERE: Can you tell us more about who this guy was and how he was killed?
RADDATZ: Well, it is so remarkable, Brad, that it’s been almost 21 years since they’ve been trying to find [al-Zawahiri]. But you just have to remember what a horrible human being he was.
[al-Zawahiri] helped in the assault on American soldiers in Somalia in 1993, bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in ’98 and the suicide bombing on the USS Cole in Yemen. And, of course, the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon Flight 93. His planning killed almost 3,000 people.
The U.S. had been tracking al-Zawahiri for, again, almost 21 years and yet never nailed down his exact location. They believe he was on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is a really rugged border, it’s really hard to find people in that. He had certainly escaped before from U.S. intelligence, but this time he showed up in Kabul, right in the center of the city in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Kabul. Places where the warlords live. Places where anybody with money, whether corrupt or not, can be found in that neighborhood. And it’s also very close to where the U.S. used to have its embassy in Kabul.
So they started tracking him many months ago. They believe he went back to Kabul to reunite with his family. Of course, what you have to remember at the center of this is that the Taliban is now in charge in Afghanistan and they, of course, harbored terrorists before 9/11. That’s why we went to battle there in Afghanistan. They promised not to do that again. But the U.S. believes they knew that senior Taliban commanders knew that al-Zawahiri was there.
So [the CIA] tracked him for months. They developed a pattern of life, meaning they just knew when he moved around. They don’t believe he ever left that house. But he would often go out on the balcony and spend a long time on the balcony. And that’s where they got him.
They targeted him when he walked out on the balcony. The president gave the order earlier last week. So they fired on [al-Zawahiri] with two Hellfire missiles from that CIA drone and took him out as he stood on the balcony. His family, [the CIA] say, was inside and unharmed as far as they know that.
START HERE: Unbelievable there. And we should mention, Martha, you said it was President Biden that gave the green light. It was also Biden’s call to totally withdraw from Afghanistan 11 months ago… Is al-Qaeda getting much more comfortable in Afghanistan without us there?
RADDATZ: I think they are getting more comfortable and this will be a big lesson to [the CIA and the U.S.] that ISIS is probably feeling more comfortable, al-Qaeda is feeling more comfortable.
But if you can track someone down like [the CIA] did in the center of the city, you should be concerned about your safety if you are a terrorist.
On the other hand, let’s remember it was about a year ago when the U.S. military targeted someone they thought was a bomb maker and it turned out to be the wrong person. And civilians were killed in that U.S. military drone strike.
This strike, this CIA drone [strike on al-Zawahiri], was the first attack, as far as we know, by the U.S. since the withdrawal last year. And by all accounts, it was a successful one.
START HERE: Really successful, when you think about it, a drone strike that was killing somebody on the balcony and not the people in the rooms nearby that balcony. Unreal. Martha Raddatz, thanks a lot.
(PHOENIX, Az.) — Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is running in Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary, said a review of the 2020 election found that just one ballot was cast in a dead voter’s name, refuting allegations, mostly from Trump supporters, that nearly 300 such ballots had been returned two years ago.
The finding from Brnovich’s office, revealed in a letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, also a Republican, marks another knock on a partisan review conducted by the Cyber Ninjas firm and propelled by Republican state senators.
The criminal investigation was sparked last year after former President Donald Trump and his allies alleged without evidence that voter fraud cost him a victory in the Grand Canyon State in 2020.
“After spending hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations, our investigators were able to determine only one of the 282 voters on the list was deceased at the time of the election. All other persons listed as deceased were found to be current voters,” Brnovich wrote, referencing the Cyber Ninjas report allegations.
Brnovich added that some of the claims “were so absurd” that the “names and birthdates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” he wrote.
“We supported the Arizona Senate’s ability to conduct an audit of Maricopa County’s elections and understand the importance of reviewing the results,” Brnovich wrote. “However, allegations of widespread deceased voters from the Senate Audit and other complaints…are insufficient and not corroborated.”
The letter from Brnovich did not say if there were any charges stemming from the one ballot cast on behalf of a deceased voter.
The Cyber Ninjas review, widely panned by Democrats and elections officials, focused on Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county and the home to Phoenix. Despite the claims of the 282 ballots, the firm’s report still showed that now-President Joe Biden won the state by 360 more votes than originally believed.
Fann said in a statement that she is “thankful’ to Brnovich’s efforts.
“They asked us to do the hard work of fact finding, and we are delivering the facts. This step of the AG’s investigation is critical to restoring the diminished confidence our constituents expressed following the last election. We’re grateful for the increased voter integrity measures put in place after the audit revealed weaknesses in our election processes,” she said.
The report comes as debates over “election integrity” in the GOP Senate primary, which will pit Brnovich against Blake Masters and Jim Lamon, among others.
Masters and Lamon have questioned the results of the 2020 election in Arizona, while Brnovich has defended the vote in the state but has expressed concern over “serious vulnerabilities” in the electoral system.
(WASHINGTON) — Top Democrats in Congress investigating the events of Jan. 6 continued to allege that the government’s federal watchdog for Homeland Security abandoned efforts to collect texts and phone records from that day.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chair the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees, on Monday renewed calls for Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to step away from the watchdog’s investigation.
“We recently called for you to step aside from this matter and for a new IG to be appointed in light of revelations that you had failed to keep Congress informed of your inability to obtain key information from the Secret Service,” the chairs said in a letter to Cuffari. “Removing yourself from this investigation is even more urgent today.”
“These documents also indicate that your office may have taken steps to cover up the extent of missing records,” the chairs added.
Last month, Cuffari told Congress that the U.S. Secret Service had deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6 and that record reviews by DHS attorneys were causing months-long delays.
But House Democrats on Monday said the inspector general may have abandoned plans to collect the texts from the Secret Service more than a year ago and did not report the issues until recently. They requested interviews with Cuffari’s staff as well as internal documents from the office.
Responding to questions on Homeland Security’s data retention policy and the missing records, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Marsha Espinosa said the department is working with the Jan. 6 committee and is cooperating with the ongoing investigations.
“DHS is fully cooperating with the ongoing investigations and, as appropriate, looking into every avenue to recover text messages and other materials for the Jan. 6 investigations,” Espinosa said in a statement. “The Department is in continued close communication with, and deeply committed to supporting the Jan. 6 Committee and those investigating the events that occurred that day.”
A spokesperson for the Secret Service acknowledged in a recent statement that some phone data from January 2021 was lost as the result of a pre-planned data transfer, noting that the transfer was underway when the IG office made the request in February 2021.
The committees also said that former DHS Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli was using his personal phone, potentially for official government businesses, and Congress was not notified by the inspector general. A report from the government accountability group Project on Government Oversight found that messages from Cuccinelli and then-DHS Secretary Chad Wolf have also gone missing.
“I complied with all data retention laws and returned all my equipment fully loaded to the Department,” Wolf said in a tweet last week. “DHS has all my texts, emails, phone logs, schedules, etc. Any issues with missing data needs to be addressed to DHS.”
A senior DHS official told ABC News that text messages are not always assumed to be records as defined by federal data retention law and individual employees are required to ensure the proper storage of records while working in an official capacity.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — After a series of delays and emotional protests, the Senate is expected to vote Tuesday night on a bill that would help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
Schumer announced that the Senate will begin voting on the PACT Act at 5 p.m., with votes on three Republican amendments before a vote on final passage of the bill. Republicans agreed to the deal.
“I believe it will pass and pass this evening,” Schumer said during his weekly press conference.
The PACT Act passed the Senate earlier this year, but after a quick fix in the House required the bill to be voted on again, 26 Republican senators changed their votes and blocked swift passage of the act last week, sparking outrage among Democrats and veterans groups.
Comedian and activist Jon Stewart has become the face of this legislation, joining veterans in protest outside the Capitol for the last several days. He’s harshly criticized Republicans and demanded action from lawmakers.
“America’s heroes who fought in our wars outside sweating their asses off with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments” while Republican senators were sitting “in the air conditioning walled off from any of it,” Stewart said during a press conference in front of the Capitol Building on Thursday. “They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings.”
Republicans said they did not object to the new funding for veterans in the bill, but wanted the opportunity to modify a “budget gimmick” they say could be exploited by Democrats. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., has led Republicans in their opposition, insisting on an amendment to change language in the bill he says could free up $400 billion in existing funds already being used for veterans by shuffling the money inside the budget to use for unrelated purposes.
“What matters to a veteran whose ill because of a toxic exposure is that the money is there to cover what he needs, that’s what he should be concerned about and that will be there,” Toomey said Tuesday. “What I am trying to limit is the extent that they could use a budget gimmick to reclassify a reclassify spending and go on an unrelated spending binge.”
Republicans will finally get their shot at closing this perceived budget loophole during a Tuesday night vote, when they consider Toomey’s amendment to modify accounting provisions in the bill. It will almost certainly fail.
“We have an exceptionally sympathetic overwhelmingly popular group of Americans, and rightfully so, they are veterans,” Toomey said. “There is overwhelming consensus to provide the resources to at least cover their healthcare cost and provide them with disability benefits because of their service to our country. In fact the cause is so popular that the 280 billion of new spending.
Schumer on the floor called today’s development “good news.”
“Our veterans across America can breathe a sigh of relief,” Schumer said on the floor. “The treatment that they deserve and have been denied by the VA because of all kinds of legal barriers and presumptions will now be gone.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Tuesday continued to highlight what it said was President Joe Biden’s “success” in killing Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader involved in the planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying it “has undoubtedly made the United States safer.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan also said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the strike vindicated Biden’s controversial and chaotic withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan last August.
“It has proven the president right when he said one year ago that we did not need to keep thousands of American troops in Afghanistan fighting and dying in a 20-year war to be able to hold terrorists at risk and to defeat threats to the United States,” Sullivan said.
The White House also released a new photograph it said showed Biden in the Situation Room on July 1 getting briefed briefed on the proposed operation by CIA director William Burns and being shown a model of the safe house where al-Zawahiri was hiding.
A White House official later confirmed to ABC News that the closed wooden box on the table in the photograph contained the scale model of the house.
When Biden announced al-Zawahiri’s death on Monday in an address from the White House, he stated “justice has been delivered” and he made a point of saying he had been careful before approving the strike that no civilians would be killed.
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the CIA carried out the operation.
A separate senior administration official said Monday there was no indication of anyone else harmed by the two Hellfire missiles fired from a drone, missiles with rotating blades that use kinetic energy to kill, different from large explosions, to limit collateral damage.
But with no U.S. forces on the ground, it was unclear how the administration could be certain of that.
Al-Zawahiri was killed at approximately 9:48 p.m. on July 30 on the balcony of his safe house in downtown Kabul after months of planning among various parts of the counterterrorism community, a senior administration official told reporters Monday.
Biden was first briefed on al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts back in April, the official told reporters, and received updates on the development of the target throughout May and June.
Biden convened several other meetings with his key advisers and Cabinet members in the weeks that followed to carefully scrutinize the intelligence and evaluate the best course of action, the official said.
A final meeting was held on July 25, during which Biden authorized the strike.
The White House photo of Biden was reminiscent of a similar photo of President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Situation Room watching the 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
While this most recent strike was largely applauded by members of Congress, Republicans focused on what they called Biden’s “disastrous withdrawal” from Afghanistan that they say reopened the door for al-Qaeda in the country.
“It is noteworthy where [al-Zawahiri] was in Kabul,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “So, al-Qaeda is back as a result of the Taliban being back in power and describing the current situation in Afghanistan as a success is utterly absurd.”
McConnell said the “precipitous decision” to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan has “produced the return of the conditions that were there before 9/11.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is demanding an immediate intelligence briefing for Congress on the “possible reemergence” of the terrorist organization. Rep. Mike McCaul, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, went so far as to say Biden lied to the American people when he said last year al-Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan.
Sullivan pushed back on the criticism on “Good Morning America,” stating the drone strike is proof the U.S. can continue to go after its enemies “over the horizon” without endangering American service members.
“There is not a single American in harm’s way in that country in uniform and there was nobody on the ground in uniform when this strike occurred and yet we were able to take Ayman al-Zawahiri off the battlefield,” Sullivan told GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I would call that a successful, effective policy that protects our troops, protects our people and ensures that Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for terrorists.”
But questions remain about how the U.S. will respond to the Taliban’s actions in sheltering al-Zawahiri. Senior members of the Taliban were aware of his presence in Kabul this year, the senior administration official told reporters Monday.
The official also said Haqqani Taliban members took actions after the airstrike to conceal al-Zawahiri’s presence at the location and acted quickly to remove al-Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter and her children to another location consistent with a broader effort to cover up that they had been living in the safe house.
Sullivan said the U.S. is in direct communication with the Taliban but did not reveal any specifics on how exactly the Taliban will be held accountable.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also declined to provide additional details on what specific steps the U.S. will take to hold the Taliban accountable during Tuesday’s press briefing, but said the “strike itself shows how serious we are about accountability.”
“It shows how serious we are about defending our interests,” Kirby added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday the Taliban “grossly” violated the Doha Agreement by sheltering al-Zawahiri. In the 2020 agreement, the Taliban said they wouldn’t harbor al-Qaeda members.
“They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with the international community,” Blinken said. “In the face of the Taliban’s unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments, we will continue to support the Afghan people with robust humanitarian assistance and to advocate for the protection of their human rights, especially of women and girls.”
Despite the Taliban’s sheltering of al-Zawahiri, Kirby told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega that Afghanistan will “never” become a safe haven for terrorists.
“If you were to ask the members of al-Qaeda, ask them how safe they feel in Afghanistan right now,” Kirby said. “I think we proved … this weekend that it isn’t a safe haven and it isn’t going to be going forward.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Trish Turner, Allison Pecorin and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
