The Biden administration moved in June to dismantle a system designed to protect American citizens trapped abroad — just months before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, stranding thousands of Americans in the Central Asian country. Fox News has obtained the June 11 memo sent around the State Department which gave the green light on the "discontinuation of the establishment, and the termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR)." The sensitive but unclassified memo was signed by Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, just a couple of months before the Biden administration’s botched troop withdrawal that saw Afghanistan fall under Taliban control. The bureau could have played a role in the response to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, where thousands of American citizens and allies are trapped behind terrorist lines. A State Department official stressed to Fox News that none of the capabilities provided by the bureau have gone away.

Source: Fox News August 18, 2021 21:50 UTC