House Condemns Biden and Harris Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

A bipartisan House majority passed a resolution on Wednesday condemning President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and 13 other current and former members of the administration over their roles in the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, after 10 Democrats joined all Republicans in delivering the rare and sweeping rebuke.

The 219-to-194 vote was the House’s final roll call before members departed Washington to focus on the election, in which control of the chamber is up for grabs. Though the resolution was uniquely broad and direct in condemning the president, members of his cabinet and top advisers in a personal capacity, instead of as an administration, the vote was symbolic because the measure carries no force of law.

Still, the participation of 10 Democrats — almost all of them facing tight re-election contests — buoyed the Republicans behind the effort to formally hold senior administration officials primarily responsible for the failures of the withdrawal in the summer of 2021, which left 13 U.S. service members dead. Democratic leaders have dismissed the resolution as a politically biased crusade.

“Ten Democrats just joined me in condemning Biden-Harris admin officials who played key roles in the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal,” Representative Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement on social media after the vote. “I am glad these colleagues put politics aside and voted to do what was right — deliver accountability to the American people.”

“After their laughingstock flop of an impeachment investigation, they’re flailing about now to attack the president or the vice president however they can,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, who opposed the Afghanistan measure, said after Wednesday’s vote. “The country sees it as cheap election-year antics and games.”

Republicans began the congressional session signaling that their investigations, which ran the gamut from Afghanistan to the business dealings of Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, could deliver serious, tangible consequences for the president, including even impeachment. Earlier this year, the G.O.P.-led House impeached Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, over the administration’s border policies, voted to recommend contempt charges for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for failing to comply with a subpoena, and rebuked Ms. Harris for her handling of immigration and security at the southern border.

But efforts to take similar aim at the president ran aground, particularly after Mr. Biden exited the presidential race. In the last several weeks, the G.O.P. has been scrambling to refocus its scrutiny on Ms. Harris, now the Democratic nominee, who had not previously been the main target of any investigations.

Republicans defended the pivot, and the fact that their final, pre-election punch against the administration’s top members was effectively a messaging resolution, as a satisfactory outcome.

Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, added in an interview: “Democrats effectively impeached Biden when they abandoned him in July and went with Kamala Harris. Democrats executed their own president, politically.”

Democrats said the resolution was a politically craven effort to sully Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris by cherry-picking evidence from the Afghanistan investigation that would put them in a bad light. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings fell sharply after the chaotic withdrawal and never recovered.

“Could it have something to do with the elections that are coming up in less than 45 days?” Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs panel, said on the floor, dismissing Wednesday’s move as intended “solely to attack the Biden administration in an election year.”

Mr. McCaul had recommended that both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris be rebuked in a 353-page report that the panel’s Republicans released this month, blaming the “Biden-Harris administration” for the failures of the withdrawal. Former President Donald J. Trump has asserted that Ms. Harris was responsible for the deaths of the 13 service members during the evacuation because she professed to be the last person in the room when Mr. Biden made the decision to withdraw.

Ms. Harris has in turn accused Mr. Trump of trying to exploit the members’ deaths for political gain, including by taking campaign photos and videos at Arlington National Cemetery. The G.O.P.’s report largely excused Mr. Trump from culpability, despite his administration’s having struck the deal with the Taliban that pledged the United States to a timeline to depart Afghanistan.

Condemnation resolutions are often used to express lawmakers’ animus against policies, adversaries, terrorist groups and actions that lawmakers deem reprehensible enough to demand congressional castigation. But they do not carry formal consequences, beyond shaming the targets of the resolutions in a more formal manner than the heated debates that are a daily occurrence on Capitol Hill.

Among the people the resolution condemned alongside Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser; Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; and certain current and former press secretaries for the White House, State Department and Pentagon. The resolution did not fault any uniformed military officials for the withdrawal.

The Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for the measure were Representatives Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jeff Jackson of North Carolina, Greg Landsman of Ohio, Susie Lee of Nevada, Mary Peltola of Alaska and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. Their offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.