Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday accused the Obama administration of squandering an opportunity to save an American human rights activist who was killed by ISIS terrorists in Syria in 2015.
“Notably, America’s hearts today are with the family of Kayla Mueller,” Pence said at Wednesday evening’s vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City.
“The reality is that when Joe Biden was vice president we had an opportunity to save Kayla Mueller,” the vice president continued. “It breaks my heart to reflect on it, but the military came into the Oval Office, presented a plan. They said they knew where Kayla was.”
“But when Joe Biden was vice president, the hesitated for a month. And when armed forces finally went it, it was clear she had been moved two days earlier,” Pence said, adding that, “we destroyed the ISIS caliphate.”
Mueller’s parents attended Wednesday night’s debate as Pence’s guests.
“Her family says with a heart that broke the heart of every American, that if President Donald Trump had been president, they believe Kayla would be alive today,” Pence said.
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced that two of the ISIS terrorists charged in Mueller’s death are are en route to the U.S. to face charges in the the capture and murders of four U.S. citizens in Syria from 2012 to 2015.
Alexanda Kotey, 36, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, two former British citizens who were part of a group of four ISIS guards known as “The Beatles,” will make their initial appearance in court later Wednesday in Alexandria, Va.
According to the indictment against the former ISIS members, they “participated in the abduction of American and European hostages in Syria” and “allegedly engaged in a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against the hostages, including against American citizens James Wright Foley, Kayla Jean Mueller, Steven Joel Sotloff, and Peter Edward Kassig.”