Veterans Team That Rescued American Woman, 3 Children Says State Department Trying To Steal Credit

Organizers of a private rescue mission of four Americans including a mom and her children from Afghanistan claimed the U.S. State Department is trying to take credit for the evacuation despite playing a limited role.

State Department officials said Monday, "We have facilitated the departure of four American citizens from Afghanistan via an overland route."

"Our Embassy greeted the Americans as they crossed the border into the third country," the department added, according to Reuters.

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, identified the four U.S. citizens as being from his district in Texas and the first people to be successfully evacuated from Afghanistan since the U.S. left Kabul on Aug. 31. He later stated on Twitter that the rescue was organized by U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Cory Mills and a private team of other military veterans.

"The State Dept didn’t do a damn thing for these people for 12 days except almost get them killed repeatedly. I know, because my office and the team on the ground led by Cory Mills & @RepMullin facilitated their escape every step of the way," stated Rep. Jackson on Twitter.

Rep. Mullin, who has been assisting the non-profit funded group of military veterans to get Americans and Special Immigrant Visa holders out of Afghanistan, told CNN that he had spoken to the rescued mother multiple times, before and after her exit from Afghanistan. Mullin recounted that the woman and her children had to travel from Kabul to a border crossing through a road with 20 Taliban checkpoints.

Previously the woman and her family were unable to get inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul while the U.S. military was still evacuating people from the country. Mills and his team who worked for weeks to get the family out of Afghanistan said that his team attempted to get her on the last government flight but were unsuccessful as they could not get past the gate to the airport being guarded by the Taliban.

During the family’s final attempt to get inside the airport, a Taliban fighter pointed a gun at the woman’s head and asked her to leave. Mills and his team got the family into a safe house once Taliban fighters started looking for the woman.

The family then tried to escape from another city using an airplane but was unsuccessful. According to Fox News, the State Department failed to gain clearance for private charter flights to land in third countries. However, Rep. Michael McCaul blamed the Taliban for the planes remaining grounded.

The family then spent a harrowing 13 hours with the Taliban at a checkpoint to secure passage but was unsuccessful initially. Mullin said they almost gave up but continued their struggle on the persistence of their American contacts. They were able to securely pass the next day.

According to Mullin, the non-profit funded group alerted the State Department to the presence of the American citizens, reported CNN.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken said the family is in "good condition. " He added that the Taliban were aware of the departure but did not intervene.

Mills called the State Department’s public claim of rescuing the family as "nonsense." "The fact that they're spinning this, trying to take 100% credit when they didn't track this family, when they placated this family, when the mother, who was under extreme stress and extreme pressure, reached out to the State Department multiple times and got no help," said Mills in an exclusive interview to Fox News.

"This is an attempt to save face by the administration for the Americans they left behind. This is a woman with three children from age 15 all the way down to two-years-old. And they did nothing to try to expedite this… But at the very last minute you have these ‘senior officials’ at the State Department trying to claim credit for this like ‘oh yeah look what we've done,'” said Mills to the outlet.

Rep. Mullin stated on Twitter that the State Department’s claim of the rescue is a "flat out lie. " He added, "The Biden Administration abandoned them. Let’s be clear, it was our team of patriots who worked around the clock for two weeks to get them out, despite the many roadblocks from the State Department."