Oklahoma U.S. Republican Congressional Rep. Markwayne Mullin (OK-02)
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OKLAHOMA – U.S. Congressman Markwayne Mullin (OK-02), a member of the intelligence committee, blames the U.S. Department of State for taking credit for a ground rescue in Afghanistan that his team launched.

Last month Rep. Mullin launched an unauthorized, rogue rescue into the war-torn country without the approval of the U.S. Dept. of State. His ambition was saving a woman named Mariam along with her three children. Mullin told CNN that Mariam is from Amarillo, Texas and is an American citizen. 

A few weeks ago, the Oklahoma representative said his office received a message requesting that he would help the family escape. Mullin said he reached out to contractors who still had people working in the region of Afghanistan where Mariam and her kids were located. He added that his team partnered with a group named The Sentinel Foundation. Mullin said the organization is non-political and that “they do this stuff [rescue missions] all the time.” 

According to the Foundation’s website, “The Sentinel Foundation was founded with one goal in mind – to end underage children being exploited around the world,” and that it “focuses on targeting elusive child traffickers that use highly skilled methods to find and exploit their victims.”

Initially, their plans were to fly into Afghanistan, rescue Mariam, her children and other Americans who had been ‘left behind.’

However, Mullin said his team’s intentions were derailed by the State Department’s refusal to give him and his team’s permission to intervene. 

Biden said no Americans would be left behind who were wanting to get out of Afghanistan

President Joe Biden recently claimed that “90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.”

The president’s administration said they are committed to getting the rest of Americans out and have a plan. “Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure safe passage for any American, Afghan partner or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan.”

Not All Americans made it to Kabul International Airport in time

Last month, President Biden told ABC News that no Americans would be stranded. 

“And so, when the administration says that every American that wanted out could get out, that’s an absolute lie because we’re working with 27 AMCITS, American citizens, right now that I assure you all of them wanted out, and we couldn’t get them out,” Mullins told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.

According to a fact check conducted by the Associated Press, Gen. Frank McKenzie, who’s head of U.S. Central Command, stated that not all Americans were able to make it to the Kabul airport during the final evacuation. McKenzie said that there were no Americans on the five final flights that left Afghanistan. 

The recent take over of the country’s capital city of Kabul by Taliban fighters made getting to the airport difficult. 

Kabul international airport became the site of terrorists bombings where 13 Americans were recently killed along with 90 Afghans at an entry gate.

Mullins Accuses U.S. Dept of State of taking credit for the rescue

“We found ourselves not being able to get her out through HKIA, which is the Kabul international airport. And even though we had her at the gate multiple times — multiple times we were on the phone with the State Department over the last two weeks trying to get her out and they wouldn’t even open the gate for us,” Mullins told CNN. 

However, during the interview, Mullins failed to mention that Taliban forces sealed off every gate at Kabul’s airport

Mullin claims that The Sentinel Foundation and his team of contractors are solely responsible for securing Mariam and her children’s 300-mile rescue journey out of Afghanistan. He accuses the U.S. State Department of trying to take credit after showing up at the last minute. 

“We had her there for 24 hours before the State Department was even aware she was there. They didn’t show up until a few hours after we’d actually — or before we got her across. And so for them to say they facilitated it is absolutely a lie,” he said.

Keilar mentioned that Mariam arrived at safety accompanied by Embassy officials. 

The representative was criticized for wanting to bring cash into the country that he purports would have been used to rescue the family. The CNN anchor Mullin about it during the interview:

“Anybody that’s worked in that region knows they don’t take credit cards. And as I said, you’ve got to go through 20 checkpoints — over 20 checkpoints before you could even get to the area we were at. And at each one of those checkpoints, they will charge you between $500 to $4,000 per person. They don’t take credit cards; they only take cash,” Mullin told the reporter.

Mullins Accused of Showboating

Many accuse Mullin of seeking attention for his unauthorized rescue. This, after two Republican officials stated they would launch their own separate missions to save Americans trapped in Afghanistan.

“At the end of the day, the State Department and the president started playing politics with it. And in the long run, it probably worked out better for them not going to land us at that time. Because what’s happened now is we started a whole ground operation to be able to start getting people that the administration left behind — because they left them behind,” Mullin stated.

Mullin alleges that the State Department didn’t begin launching ground rescues in Afghanistan until after his team saved the family. 

Notably, Mullin wasn’t in Afghanistan or in the middle east during the rescue effort. He was in Oklahoma.

Nehemiah D. Frank is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Black Wall Street Times and a descendant of two families that survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Although his publication’s store and newsroom...

One reply on “Republican Congressman Mullin blames State Dept. for taking rescue credit”

  1. This Congressman is a complete fraud. He always has been, and he had no role or way to get anyone out of Afghanistan on his own as he claims. Even this family was escorted out by State Dept. staff. I did notice on the same day on MSNBC, representatives from Non profits, national media and veterans all were claiming they couldn’t get a response from the US State Dept. immediately when they asked to get their people out. How could anyone answer hundreds of demands all made at one time on one day? Everyone that was going to get out was going to get out on a military plane, so they all wanted the same seats and all blamed Biden. Why didn’t these non profits and NATIONAL media organizations have their own escape plan ready to go? They knew the Trump surrender document set the end date for May, They knew Biden extended it only a couple months yet they did NOTHING. OF course then it is Biden’s fault that not every last minute inquiry wasn’t responded to immediately. These organizations should take responsibility for their own failures to plan. Especially Mullin, who is a big Trumpist and approved whole heartedly the surrender documents negotiated by the Sec. of State. Approved of Trump’s offer to host the Taliban leaders at “vacation spot” Camp David. Approved of Trump demanding Pakistan release the co-founder of the Taliban from a life sentence in Pakistan, which the did under intense pressure. Suddenly he forgot his role in all these events and whines about how hard it is for him to get proper credit for organizing the escape from Kabul. As I said: What a fraud.

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