Antony Blinken – Gloomberg News

The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to move forward with holding Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena. The committee is aiming for a floor vote in early June, the panel's Republican chairman told CBS News."It's a path I would rather not take, but it's necessary," committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in an interview on the eve of the May 11 deadline to provide State Department records to the House Committee. The GOP-led committee issued a subpoena in late March for an internal confidential State Department document known as a "dissent cable," which had been written by 23 of the department's employees in Kabul, Afghanistan, that warned, according to the Wall Street Journal, that Kabul would fall after th...

Speculation is growing that the U.S. could release Viktor Bout, a convicted arms dealer nicknamed the "Merchant of Death," to secure the freedom of women's basketball star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who are both imprisoned in Russia. Russian state media has speculated for months that Griner, who was detained at a Moscow airport in February on drug charges, and Whelan, sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison on espionage charges that he called a setup, could be swapped for Bout, whose freedom has long been sought by the Kremlin. But the Biden administration remained quiet about the possibility. Then on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, offered the first public glimpse at efforts to bring Griner and Whelan home, saying the U.S. has put forward a...

Tag: Antony Blinken

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman wants floor vote on Blinken contempt by early June

Who is Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death”?