Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has since claimed that the former acting Ambassador to Afghanistan lied about a COVID test in order to hasten his own evacuation as the country collapsed.

According to Axios, McCaul made the claim during an exclusive interview with the outlet, as the Foreign Affairs Committee plans to release its own report on the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021.

McCaul claims that Ross Wilson, the acting ambassador at the time, ordered an employee to lie about Wilson testing positive for the Chinese Coronavirus, as this result would have hindered his own evacuation due to travel restrictions in place at the time for anyone who tested positive for the virus.

“Ambassador Wilson had an employee fake his COVID test so he could fly back to the United States immediately,” the report reads, in part.

McCaul further claimed that Wilson had gone on vacation as recently as July of 2021 without confirming evacuation plans in the event of a Taliban insurgency. Wilson allegedly ignored warnings from over 20 employees of the State Department, who warned him that “we’re in danger here,” and that “the Taliban is coming.”

“And they were right,” McCaul noted, “because that’s exactly what happened.”

When the Taliban began marching across the country in early August, it became apparent that they would soon seize the capital city of Kabul. But as late as August 14th, when the Taliban was outside the gates of Kabul, the Biden-Harris Administration still did not have an exact plan in place with regards to who would be eligible for evacuation, or where evacuees would even be sent.

“So you can imagine the chaos that ensued because there was no plan of evacuation in place, no no operation of evacuation in place at the time,” McCaul continued.

The White House issued a statement in response to McCaul’s claims, insisting that “Chairman McCaul’s latest partisan report is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start.”

“As we have said many times, ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result,” White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang added.

Despite the White House’s stubborn insistence on defending Biden’s actions, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was universally seen as a massive failure, earning Biden bipartisan condemnation as well as criticism from international leaders due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the withdrawal’s chaotic execution and lack of planning. The fall of Afghanistan marked the turning point in Biden’s presidency, with his approval ranging plummeting and remaining consistently low ever since.