A senior investigator with the House Foreign Affairs Committee looking into the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago resigned in protest Monday, saying the panel has been "derelict in their duty" in getting answers for Gold Star families regarding the deaths of American service members stemming from the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate.
Jerry Dunleavy IV, a onetime journalist and author of a book detailing the deaths of 13 service members at the Kabul airport, accused committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, of not going far enough fast enough.
"McCaul & his team have also been derelict in their duty to pursue answers for the Abbey Gate Gold Star families, to seek the proper documents, to bring in the proper witnesses, to ask the tough questions, to fully pursue the truth without fear or favor, & to do everything in the Committee's power to ensure that a deadly humiliation like this never happens again," Dunleavy wrote in his resignation letter posted to X. "McCaul & the Committee made promises to the Abbey Gate Gold Star families & to the American public at large — & those promises simply have not been kept."
Further, Dunleavy wrote that "McCaul & his team are unwilling to take even the most basic steps necessary" to hold those responsible to account.
"The Committee's disappointing lack of courage & lack of moral clarity just cannot go unremarked," he wrote.
A spokesperson for committee Republicans said in a statement that McCaul "pours his heart and soul into getting answers for our Gold Star families and Afghanistan veterans."
Further, the committee's final report is expected out next month, Emily Cassil said.
Dunleavy authored a book titled, "Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End." He joined the panel as an investigator in July 2023.
In addition to the 13 American service members, 170 Afghan civilians were killed when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated at Abbey Gate in August 2021. Not one Biden administration official or military leader resigned after the last flight out of Kabul on Aug. 30, 2021, though many of those responsible have since retired, the New York Post reported.
"[I]f we don't pursue real accountability and pursue real answers here is that there aren't going to be lessons learned. There's not going to be accountability, no one's going to feel like there needs to be a big mindset change. No one's gonna really absorb the fact that this was a big loss," Dunleay told The Hill separately.