Ratcliffe Reveals CIA Ties Prove Biden Vetting Failed

The National Guard shooting near the White House left two service members critically wounded and has exposed serious questions about how an Afghan evacuee who allegedly carried out the attack entered and integrated into the United States, including reported ties to U.S. government entities like the CIA.

Two National Guard members were shot in an attack the FBI calls an ambush, and authorities have reported the pair remained in critical condition. The alleged shooter has been identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who arrived in the U.S. during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. That evacuation, carried out under the Biden administration, moved thousands of people into the country under emergency policies that bypassed normal processes. Conservative readers are rightly alarmed that the consequences of those policies could include threats to American service members on U.S. soil.

What matters now is getting clear answers about who this man was, why he was allowed in, and whether proper vetting ever happened. Initial reporting indicates Lakanwal had worked with U.S. government entities in Afghanistan, a fact that raises more questions than it answers. If someone with ties to American agencies could later be accused of attacking our troops, voters deserve accountability and a full review of how these decisions were made.

“In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Fox News Digital.

“The individual—and so many others—should have never been allowed to come here,” Ratcliffe continued. “Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures.” 

Ratcliffe added: “God bless our brave troops.”

Those statements, coming from a senior intelligence official, make the issue painfully political. Ratcliffe’s comments tie the arrival of the suspect directly to policy choices made by the administration in 2021, and that link will be central to the political argument over responsibility. From a conservative standpoint, this is precisely the kind of predictable fallout critics warned about when the withdrawal and later resettlement programs were defended as emergency measures.

We need transparent disclosure about what kind of vetting occurred, what records tied Lakanwal to U.S. entities, and whether other agencies were involved in bringing him here. Public confidence hinges on an honest accounting of background checks, intelligence-sharing, and the decision-making chain that allowed him to be resettled in the United States. The suspicion that the suspect may have worked with more than one government office means multiple agencies may now be under scrutiny.

Local reports say Lakanwal lived in Washington state, yet the alleged attack took place in the nation’s capital, prompting obvious questions about his travels and activities here. Law enforcement should be compelled to explain how someone with his reported history moved within the country without triggering red flags. Americans deserve to know whether gaps in monitoring, communication, or border policy enabled a dangerous situation.

The political reaction has already begun, with some on the left focusing on the presence of the Guard rather than the attack itself. That shift in narrative risks blaming defenders for the actions of an alleged assailant and deflects attention from the deeper policy failures that allowed the suspect into the country in the first place. From a Republican viewpoint, pointing fingers at the Guard is out of step when the urgent question is how to prevent dangerous individuals from slipping through due to poor administration decisions.

Federal agencies are responding under pressure. U.S. immigration authorities have reportedly paused some Afghan-related immigration processing to review vetting practices, a move that acknowledges at least some systemic concerns. That kind of pause is overdue if it means fixing the kinds of failures that could let someone with a troubling background be resettled without adequate oversight.

Investigators will need to trace the suspect’s interactions with government entities, verify any documentation of his prior service with partner forces, and determine whether intelligence about him was shared appropriately. Republicans will press for a full accounting, not only to assign responsibility but to make sure the same mistakes do not recur. This is about protecting citizens and the troops who step forward to defend them.

Families of the wounded National Guard members deserve to hear everything officials discover, and the American public deserves reforms that restore confidence in immigration and vetting processes. As details emerge from official briefings, every step of the suspect’s path to and within the United States should be laid bare for public review. If policy decisions led directly to a situation where our own service members were targeted, there must be consequences and immediate corrective action.