EXCLUSIVE: Joni Ernst Rails Against Biden Admin For Erroneously Sending $293 Million To Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan

Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst slammed the Biden administration on Friday for erroneously sending at least $293 million to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, according to a letter obtained by the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation.

State Department bureaus failed to properly vet the recipients of $293 million provided for aid to Afghanistan in 2022, raising concerns that the Taliban may have been a beneficiary, according to a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report from July. Ernst told President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Friday letter that the mistake was “unacceptable” and demanded they “take immediate action to rectify these issues.”

“After leaving billions in cutting-edge military equipment behind during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have given the Taliban $293 million in cold hard cash,” Ernst told the DCNF. “The American people deserve better than the complete amateur hour occurring at the White House and State Department. I’m demanding accountability.”

Ernst told Blinken and Biden that the “failure has resulted in an increased risk that terrorist and terrorist-affiliated individuals and entities illegally benefited from your administration’s spending in Afghanistan,” according to the letter. State Department officials previously admitted to SIGAR that the department’s relevant bureaus had not complied with proper document retention and vetting requirements for certain recipients who received aid, resulting in the $293 million in questionable assistance, according to the July SIGAR report.