From RT.com…
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to refute reports that the Biden administration gave lists of Americans and allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban, but then went on to say it provided names for busloads of its evacuees.
Asked by NBC News host Chuck Todd on Sunday how the administration could be sure that lists of people the US is trying to get out of Afghanistan won’t be used for “horrendous reasons,” Blinken said “it’s simply not the case” that such information has been turned over to the Taliban.
“The idea that we’ve done anything to put at further risk those that we’re trying to help leave the country is simply wrong,” Blinken added. “And the idea that we shared lists of Americans or others with the Taliban is simply wrong.”
Todd followed up, asking Blinken, “What was shared?” The secretary of state replied that “in specific instances,” the administration gave the Taliban manifests for busloads of people that it needed to get through checkpoints to the Kabul airport for evacuation.
“When you’re trying to get a bus or a group of people through and you need to show a manifest to do that – particularly in cases where people don’t have the necessary credentials on them or documents on them – then you’ll share names of the lists of people on the bus so they can be assured those are the people we’re looking to bring in,” he said. “By definition, that’s exactly what’s happened, we’ve gotten 5,500 American citizens out of Afghanistan.”
