One of the most Donald Trump-aligned GOP senators blocked the promotion of a top U.S. general over the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a new report.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the last U.S. soldier to withdraw from Afghanistan, was set to become the head of the U.S. Army in Europe as part of almost 1,000 promotions that moved through the Senate last week. But Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) held his name up in order to allow President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration to weigh in, according to CBS News.
Mullin’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. Mullin rankled feathers last week when he suggested vaccines could be responsible for autism—years after writing that vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration were safe and effective.
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Some in the Army told CBS News they believed Donahue‘s name was held up for political reasons, and they were working to try and lift the hold on his promotion from a three-star general to a four-star general.
The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan stemmed from an agreement the Trump administration brokered with the Taliban, though that arrangement required the group to not engage in terrorist activities. The Taliban eventually spurned that agreement, though the Biden administration still completed the withdrawal in 2021.
The eventual operation left dozens of Afghans and 13 U.S. service members dead after a suicide bombing near a Kabul airport. The State Department found that the erratic nature of the withdrawal stemmed from a failure of officials to grasp “the scale and scope of the operation.”
