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Thirteen American service members were murdered by an ISIS-K suicide bomber at Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, while Cait Conley was serving as a director for counterterrorism on President Biden’s National Security Council staff. Yesterday, as the White House proclaimed a national day of commemoration and the country honored the fallen, Conley said nothing. Five years on, she has never publicly addressed the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal. 

Pearl River, NY — August 27, 2026 — Yesterday, Americans marked five years since the terrorist attack at Abbey Gate, where an ISIS-K suicide bomber murdered 13 American service members and approximately 170 Afghan civilians during the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The White House proclaimed August 26, 2026, a day of commemoration and named each of the fallen: Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover, Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Sgt. Nicole Gee, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Cpl. Daegan Page, Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Maxton Soviak. In a district Mike Lawler calls a district of heroes, where more than half of households include a veteran, service member, law enforcement officer, or first responder, many across the Hudson Valley joined in that remembrance.

Cait Conley, who reportedly played a crucial role on President Biden’s NSC staff as Director of Counterterrorism, said nothing. As of today, Conley still has not posted a remembrance of the 13 fallen on her watch nor issued a statement on the anniversary, on any campaign account or on her campaign website. On the anniversary itself, Townhall reported that Conley “has never commented publicly about the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal effort.”

Conley was on active duty at the White House during the first two years of the Biden administration, serving, in her own words, as “a director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff.” That is also the credential cited frequently when she appears on national television. This places her directly in the Biden White House’s room of decision-makers on the deadliest day for American forces in Afghanistan in a decade, an attack carried out by the terrorist group ISIS-K.

In May, Fox News reported that Conley has been “largely silent” on the evacuation, that her exact responsibilities during the withdrawal “remain undisclosed,” and that her position “would have likely landed her in meetings about the planning and execution of the evacuation.” Her campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee indicates that the National Security Council “played an outsized role in the decision-making process leading up to the withdrawal.”

“Yesterday, most of the country stopped to honor 13 heroes who gave their lives at Abbey Gate. The White House proclaimed it a day of remembrance. Their families miss them every single day. Yet Cait Conley, who was Director of Counterterrorism at NSC in the Biden White House on the day an ISIS-K bomber killed them, could not muster a single word in remembrance,” said Lawler for Congress spokesman Ciro Riccardi. “She brings up her White House credentials on the campaign trail and in interviews all the time. But five years after one of the deadliest days for American troops in Afghanistan, Cait still will not tell voters what she did, what she knew, or what she thinks went wrong.”

Cait Conley owes Hudson Valley voters honest answers on the following:

1. Why did she offer no public remembrance of the 13 Americans killed at Abbey Gate on the fifth anniversary of the attack, a day the White House proclaimed a national commemoration?
2. What was her role, as a director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff, in the planning and execution of the August 2021 withdrawal?
3. Does she believe the withdrawal was handled competently, and if not, who in the administration she served should be held accountable?

“Cait Conley tells voters her national security record is a reason to vote for her, but she refuses to defend her decision-making when it comes to one of the deadliest days for American troops since the turn of the millennium,” Riccardi concluded. “Not only is Cait too chicken to debate, but she’s also too chicken to answer for her failures in the Biden White House.”


 

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