Republican senator blocks promotion of general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal

(CNN) — A Republican senator has blocked the promotion of a general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a source familiar with the matter, as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to go after the officials involved in the withdrawal.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma blocked the promotion of Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue to four-star general as the commander of US Army Europe-Africa. Donahue was the last US soldier on the ground in Afghanistan at the end of the withdrawal, according to the Pentagon. The night-vision picture of Donahue boarding a cargo flight out of the Kabul airport become a symbolic image of the end of a 20-year war and a chaotic withdrawal that saw the deaths of 13 US troops in a suicide bombing.

Trump said he will demand the resignation of “every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity.” Vice President-elect JD Vance also promised to go after those involved in the withdrawal, saying, “the people who screwed this up are going to suffer some consequences.”

Donahue serves as the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. At the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal, he was a major general commanding the 82nd Airborne Division.

“We are aware that there is a hold on Lt. Gen. Donahue,” Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon press secretary, said at a press briefing Monday. Singh said she is not aware of any other holds on promotions related to the Afghanistan withdrawal.

On November 19, the Senate Armed Services Committee announced the advancement of 984 military promotions, including nominations from each of the branches of the military. But Donahue was not on the list of nominees advanced. The Pentagon announced four days earlier that he had been nominated for promotion to general.

In addition to leading a storied military corps, Donahue has also been critical in the US effort to help Ukraine, helping to establish the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine. The organization was established in November 2022 as a more long-term extension of the work of 18th Airborne Corps, which deployed to Europe to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank after Russia invaded Ukraine.

CNN has reached out to Mullin for comment.

On the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 US service members, Mullin said that “not one person has been held accountable for the disaster” and explicitly named Donahue and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley.

Republicans have railed against Milley and the Afghanistan withdrawal even though it was Trump who negotiated directly with the Taliban to remove US forces from the country, despite Milley and Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of US Central Command, recommending against withdrawing.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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