No Stranger To Controversy: Pentagon Official Who Was WIDELY-Opposed By Republicans Reportedly Planning Resignation

Kahl, a known partisan, faced significant opposition from Senate Republicans during his 2021 confirmation. He will depart under a cloud of controversy after being accused of leaking classified information to shield the Biden administration from criticism following its mishandling of a Chinese spy balloon floating over American soil.

Kahl, who served as then-vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser during the Obama administration, assumed the Pentagon's top policy job in April 2021 following a pitched battle over his Senate confirmation. Republicans united against Kahl, citing his vitriolic tweets calling the GOP the "party of ethnic cleansing," but Senate Democrats were able to secure his confirmation.

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Kahl most recently made waves for allegedly leaking classified information after the Chinese balloon traversed the United States, collecting sensitive information about military sites. Republican senators say Kahl provided reporters with classified data indicating that Chinese Communist Party spy balloons also flew over America during the Trump administration. The leak was meant to shift blame from the Biden White House over its mishandling of the spy balloon, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.

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"It was a brazen attempt to shift blame," Republican senators Roger Wicker (Miss.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) wrote in a March letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, requesting an investigation. The Pentagon still has not come clean about the leaks or their source.

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May 18, 2023

Kahl has also been accused of leaking classified information over Twitter and other forums, prompting senators to question whether he was eligible for security clearance. Additional concerns have been raised about Kahl's work at a research center that partnered with China's Peking University, which is closely aligned with the Communist country's military.

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Kahl played a principal role in the Biden administration's bungled 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, leaving 13 Americans dead. Republican senators who had questioned Kahl's fitness for the top Pentagon position said the Afghanistan debacle proved that Kahl was not up for the job.

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Kahl also played a principal role in the Obama administration's 2015 effort to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, which provided the hardline regime with billions of dollars in cash windfalls.

In 2016, Kahl publicly defended Biden when the then-Vice President was accused of lobbying foreign leaders, including those in Ukraine, to vote in favor of an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations.

Kahl's resignation comes after months of controversy and criticism from Republican senators who had questioned his fitness for the top Pentagon position.