Noting that the information had been requested months earlier, O’Keefe pointed out that reporters had only received it 10 minutes before the briefing that preceded the Easter holiday. “Why today? Is this all we get? Is this a response to the studies that were done by the agencies or is this considered a summary?” he asked, calling the move “the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump.”
“This is the result of months and months of work by individual agencies,” Kirby objected, explaining that the full reports from those agencies were classified and that the Biden administration had put together the assessment that was sent out to reporters and leaders on Capitol Hill.
O’Keefe continued to press, however, noting that according to the administration’s assessment, President Biden had “received and accepted the unanimous advice of his top national security officials to end the evacuation on August 31.”
“What is the definition of a top national security official, because we know for example General McKenzie, who was then head of CentCom, said he objected to aspects of this,” O’Keefe asked.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member