5 things to know about Trump's DHS pick Markwayne Mullin
3. He helped rescue Americans from Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover
In 2021, as many Americans sought to get out of Afghanistan following the sudden drawdown of U.S. military presence in the country, Mullin worked to intervene as many were trapped amid the imminent takeover of the Taliban despite warnings from the Biden-era State Department and congressional leaders not to travel to Afghanistan.
The Taliban was charging people between $500 and $4,000 as a “tax” in order to get past checkpoints at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
“We got a humanitarian flight plan from FAA,” he explained in an interview with Fox News. “And everything was good to go. … We left the United States, we had a time of arrival at … the airport there in Kabul. And we got there and we’re drawing an approach and they canceled our PPR. And so we circled the airport, probably for an hour, and we had five PPRs canceled. Every time they’d cancel, the agency that was trying to get us in would give us a new one. They actually went into the tower to say let them land.”
Mullin also asserted that his efforts sought to emulate rescue missions carried out by French and British special forces to ensure the successful evacuation of citizens of their respective countries who wished to leave Afghanistan.
In an interview with local news outlet Fox 23, Mullin indicated that he used his own money to cover the expenses of flying to Afghanistan with several retired military members, while nonprofit organizations provided most of the funding for the trip. He told the local news outlet that the team he worked with assisted in evacuating around 200 people.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
