(RoyalPatriot.com )- The acting Inspector General for the Defense Department informed two Republican senators last week that he would conduct a review of a new whistleblower claim that more than 300 of the Afghan refugees the Biden administration brought into the United States were on a Department of Defense watchlist.
According to a report from Axios last week, acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell wrote in a letter to Senators Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley that the IG’s office was “initiating an evaluation” that would begin in the first quarter of the 2023 Fiscal Year to “address your questions pertaining to the DoD’s role in reviewing DoD databases for information on Afghan evacuees when requested by other agencies.”
The IG also plans to investigate whether NSC officials and the Pentagon failed to follow “proper procedures” when processing Afghan evacuees both in Afghanistan and at staging bases in Europe.
O’Donnell made it clear in his letter that this would not be a formal investigation since formal investigations are typically of a criminal nature.
The Axios report came just one day after the DHS Inspector General said Homeland Security lacked “critical data to properly screen, vet, and inspect” the Afghans evacuated after the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021.
In the report, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said the IG’s office had determined that some of the information DHS used to vet these Afghans was “inaccurate, incomplete, or missing.”
Senators Hawley and Johnson said the whistleblower had informed them that 324 Afghan evacuees were on the Pentagon’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist and Pentagon officials were instructed to “abbreviate” biometric tests so they could keep up with the flood of evacuees coming from Afghanistan.
