Former top Biden administration decision makers were silent on whether they stand by the vetting procedures deployed for “Operation Allies Welcome,” the Afghan resettlement program that was utilized by the alleged National Guard attacker to get to the U.S.

The heinous incident that claimed the life of one West Virginia National Guard member and gravely wounded another on Thanksgiving Eve sprung back to the forefront last week when House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., infuriated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when he referred to it as an “unfortunate accident.”

The attack renewed questions over whether Democrats still stand by the vetting processes put in place by the previous administration — and whether officials involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal and refugee resettlement would revise those decisions today.

Fox News Digital has reached out to several members of the Biden administration with roles directly or tangentially related to the Afghanistan withdrawal and the resettlement of Afghan refugees.

SENATOR RENEWS PUSH TO MANDATE VETTING FOR AFGHAN EVACUEES AFTER NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTING

Inquiries to former President Joe Biden’s office, former Vice President Kamala Harris and a second request to an individual listed as Harris’ literary agent were not returned within a week.

Messages sent to former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley [Ret.], as well as via an official at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs – where he is listed as a visiting professor – also went unanswered.

Milley, though a general, was not in a command position – as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is an advisory role.

In that regard, he did not make any operational decisions, but instead was in the president’s ear when it came to military advice. Milley later told senators on Capitol Hill that he recommended maintaining a small, 2,500-troop force in Afghanistan.

Fox News Digital also reached out to former Central Command (CENTCOM) commander, Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie via his new role at the University of South Florida, for comment – which was not returned. 

AFGHAN EVACUEE ARRESTED BEFORE DC SHOOTING FEDERALLY CHARGED WITH THREATENING TERROR ATTACK

CENTCOM covers the Middle East and was tasked with overseeing security and evacuation operations out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

Messages sent to addresses listed for National Security Adviser Jacob Sullivan and Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer were not returned. Finer is now a visiting fellow at Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and Sullivan’s wife – Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., is in her first term in Congress.

Sullivan was a key adviser to Biden during the withdrawal and was later pressed by CNN whether he feels “personally responsible for the failures” therein.

He replied that the “strategic call President Biden made, looking back three years, history has judged well and will continue to judge well. From the point of view that, if we were still in Afghanistan today, Americans would be fighting and dying; Russia would have more leverage over us; we would be less able to respond to the major strategic challenges we face.”

A woman who answered a line listed for former Secretary of State Antony Blinken redirected Fox News Digital to a press liaison. That request was not returned.

Blinken, as leader of the State Department, was the point person for the diplomatic aspect of the withdrawal. He advised Biden on what to do about the Taliban’s “Doha Agreement” that was forged by the previous Trump administration, while the department coordinated overflight rights, temporary housing and other issues regarding the refugee outflow from Kabul.

SENATE REPUBLICANS LAUNCH INVESTIGATION INTO BIDEN IMMIGRATION PROGRAMS AFTER DC NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTING

A woman who answered an extension listed for former Pentagon chief Gen. Lloyd Austin III [Ret.] said she would take a message and that Austin would return the call if he wished.

As Pentagon chief, Austin was the top bureaucrat in the U.S. military structure at the time of the withdrawal.

After the Thanksgiving Eve attack, U.S. Citizenship for Immigration Services administrator Joe Edlow announced a review of the green card system, citing suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s situation.

His predecessor, Biden-appointed Ur Jaddou, did not respond to a request for comment.

AFGHAN EVACUEES WITH CHILD-FONDLING, TERROR ARRESTS SWEPT UP IN DHS CRACKDOWN AFTER BOTCHED VETTING EXPOSED

Fox News Digital also reached out to alleged addresses linked to former Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, but did not receive responses. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Belfer Center at Harvard, which recently cited that Sherwood-Randall would be rejoining their ranks to lead their “Initiative on Bioconvergence, Biosecurity, and Bioresilience.”

Fox News Digital also attempted to reach Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, via his new role at a global advisory firm, but did not receive a response.

Efforts to reach Biden confidants Ronald Klain and Jeffrey Zients were unsuccessful.

FBI PROBES POSSIBLE TIES OF NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTER TO TABLIGHI JAMAAT, A ‘CATALYST’ FOR JIHAD

Tracey Jacobson, now the chargé d’affaires for the U.S. in Dhaka, Bangladesh, led the administration’s Afghanistan coordination task force charged with processing and relocating Afghan allies. She did not respond to an inquiry.

During the Afghan withdrawal, Jacobson was named by the Biden administration to lead an Afghanistan coordination task force as part of its “whole-of-government effort to process, transport and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies,” according to Biden.

2021 AFGHAN REMARKS HAUNT GOP LAWMAKER’S SENATE BID AFTER DC GUARD SHOOTING

Former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus was asked by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign in 2022 or risk being the first Biden administration official fired, according to The New York Times.

DHS officials ultimately cut his access to the agency’s social media accounts, according to the paper, and a report from Heritage Foundation fellow Simon Hankinson cited that he ultimately left the job soon after.

His role would have also placed him in the midst of the orchestration of Operation Allies Welcome and Operation Allies Refuge. He was also unable to be reached for comment.

Another Mayorkas deputy, then-FEMA Director Robert Fenton Jr., was reportedly tasked with setting up Operation Allies Welcome centers to help evacuees “integrate successfully and safely into new communities.”

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Fenton remains the Region 9 administrator for the agency, tasked with an area covering the west coast and South Pacific protectorates. An inquiry to Fenton was not returned.

Mayorkas himself could not be reached directly for comment. Efforts to reach him via a law firm he was or is connected to, as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is a visiting scholar, were either unsuccessful or not returned.

Rob Reiner was known to millions as a TV actor and film director.

But the Brentwood resident, known for the classic films “Stand by Me” and “When Harry Met Sally,” was also a political force, an outspoken supporter of progressive causes and a Democratic Party activist who went beyond the typical role of celebrities who host glitzy fundraisers.

Reiner was deeply involved in issues that he cared about, such as early childhood education and the legalization of gay marriage.

Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, were found dead inside his home Sunday, sparking an outpouring of grief from those who worked with him on a variety of causes.

Ace Smith — a veteran Democratic strategist to former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Gov. Jerry Brown and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — had known Reiner for decades. Reiner, he said, approached politics differently than most celebrities.

“Here’s this unique human being who really did make the leap between entertainment and politics,” Smith said. “And he really spent the time to understand policy, really, in its true depth, and to make a huge impact in California.”

Reiner was a co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the organization that successfully led the fight to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage. He was active in children’s issues through the years, having led the campaign to pass Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Initiative, which created an ambitious program of early childhood development services.

Proposition 10 was considered landmark policy. Reiner enlisted help in that effort from Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, and his own father, comedy legend Carl Reiner.

“He wanted to make a difference. And he did, and he did profoundly,” Smith said.

After Proposition 10 passed, Reiner was named the chair of the California Children and Families Commission, also known as First 5 California. He resigned from the post in early 2006 after the commission ran $23 million in ads touting the importance of preschool as Reiner was gathering support for Proposition 82.

The measure, which was unsuccessful, would have taxed the wealthy to create universal preschool in California.

The filmmaker and his wife spent more than $6 million on the failed proposition. They also donated significant sums to support national Democratic Party groups and candidates including Jerry Brown, Gray Davis, Ed Rendell and Andrew Cuomo.

Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley professor of education and public policy, called Reiner “a caring and vigilant advocate for children. He added cachet and cash to California’s movement to open preschools for tens of thousands of young families over the past quarter-century.”

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had known Reiner since he was a state lawmaker in the 1990s, worked with him on Proposition 10 and was impressed with how Reiner embraced the cause.

“He was a man with a good answer. It wasn’t politics as much as he was always focused on the humanity among us,” Villaraigosa said. ‘When he got behind an issue, he knew everything about it.”

“Just a really special man. A terrible day,” the former mayor said.

Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that she was “heartbroken” by the day’s events, saying Reiner “always used his gifts in service of others.”

“Rob Reiner’s contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” the mayor said.

“I’m holding all who loved Rob and Michele in my heart,” Bass said.

Newsom added, “Rob was a passionate advocate for children and for civil rights — from taking on Big Tobacco, fighting for marriage equality, to serving as a powerful voice in early education. He made California a better place through his good works.”

“Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity,” the governor said.

t, gerrymandering, and emocratic areas to vote.
) two Senate seats, thanks to e victory was enough to save Senator John McCain’s deci- ope for 2020. I was especially in South Florida over a GOP of good work as president of rt campaign.
as Vegas to see former Senate 1o was battling cancer but still to fight on as long as he had lid two long sessions with the out Hillary. It was both exhila- out her and painful because I nd the problems as well as the Hillary was streamed on Hulu g her life and work. But it hurt ney wished America had seen She was there all the time, but view of them is blocked by

a film on the late King Hussein esperately ill with cancer, came lenge the Palestinians to make also weighed in, diplomatically, ying in a press conference that with nine U.S. presidents and as much for peace as I had, and ish the job. With his life ebbing him. Soon I would be marching 1. He was a brave, good man, and d by his son Abdullah, who along Palestinian by birth, have contin- peace and fairness in the Middle in CGI, and have been uncom- Hillary and me.

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2017-2020: Back to the Foundation

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Throughout 2018 and 2019, the Miami Herald had been pub- lishing stories about the financier Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2008 had been convicted and jailed in Florida for sex crimes. In part because of that rigorous journalism, Epstein was arrested again in 2019 for those and other crimes, this time by federal authori- ties in New York. The Herald stories and his rearrest raised questions about several well-known people’s connection to him, including me. They deserved answers and I gave them. In 2002 and 2003, he invited me to fly on his airplane to support the work of the foundation, and in return for flying me, my staff, and my Secret Service detail who always accompanied me, Epstein asked only that I take an hour or two on each trip to discuss politics and economics. He had just donated $10 million to Har- vard for brain research and he asked a lot of questions. That was the extent of our conversations. My only other interactions with Epstein were two brief meetings, one at my office in Harlem and another at his house in New York.
I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing. He hurt a lot of people, but I knew nothing about it and by the time he was first arrested in 2005, I had stopped contact with him. I’ve never visited his island. When it was suggested that I traveled there without my round- the-clock Secret Service detail, which would explain why there’s never been a record of me being there, in 2016 the Service took the extraordinary step of saying I had never waived protection and they had never been there. Another person reportedly said she’d seen me on the island, but that I didn’t do anything wrong. However, in early 2024, unsealed depositions showed that she’d only heard I was there but didn’t actually see me. Then there was one of my former staffers who fed the story to Vanity Fair. He knew it wasn’t true when he said it.
The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward. I wish I had never met him.

In May, I went to the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, to address a symposium on the presidency. I worked

11/2024