Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina White House press secretary JEN PSAKI is fond of promising reporters that she will “circle back” with them about questions they ask at the daily briefing. Usually that involves digging up a statistic or detail to send along to the inquiring journalist. But during the final, panicked weeks of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, it meant turning her press shop into a sort of triage center for tips on American citizens seeking to flee the country. “Give me their contact information and we will get in touch with them,” Psaki told Fox News’ PETER DOOCY when he pressed her at the Aug. 24 briefing about an American citizen in Kabul who’d told Fox she and her family were stranded, unable to get to the airport. “If any of you are hearing from American citizens who can’t reach us, give me their contact information, and we will get in contact with them.” She meant it; so much so that she had a dedicated point person for it. Psaki tasked White House press office chief of staff AMANDA FINNEY with compiling the names and information for Americans trapped in Afghanistan, which had been sent directly to press staffers. The names were sent from different avenues, including from the public, government employees and reporters — totaling hundreds by early September. They were also being sent separately to the White House Office of Correspondence, the White House Gender Policy Council and the National Security Council. Finney became the “funneler” for such requests, and she focused on that list for weeks, inputting the peoples’ contacts and information into a color-coded spreadsheet that took up her whole screen. Her list became both an emblem of the chaos that had followed the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan as well as a signal of progress the administration was making from the disorder they’d unintentionally spawned. Anytime she got word that someone had made it out of Afghanistan safely, their status was turned to green. “We hoped we got people connected into the right place,” Finney said. “It’s hard when you’re not on the ground. And you’re just sitting behind the computer. It’s hard to feel the impact.” The information Finney compiled was then sent directly to the evacuation task force run by the State Department , in coordination with the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, which was conducting 24/7 operations to try to contact people and help them get out. That task force is still in operation. The press team also reached out directly to national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN and deputy national security adviser JON FINER , who would in turn call people on the ground, Psaki said in an interview. “In addition to everything that was happening here, they were also doing that — calling people on the ground,” she said. “They were working to get people out.” The White House wasn’t the only part of the U.S. government being flooded with pleas for help. Information was pouring into the Bureau of Consular Affairs — which is part of the State Department — and through federal agencies and veterans groups. There was also a State Department email, phone number and a Facebook page that took requests. The task force is still working closely with advocacy groups, nongovernmental organizations, members of Congress and government agencies to help people who qualified for an evacuation prior to Aug. 31 — the date U.S. troops departed — and anyone else who may still want help getting out of the country, a senior State Department official said. The White House Office of Correspondence forwarded along to the State Department and DHS 1,971 requests for assistance from members of the public. Those were submitted via the White House website or through the mail, a National Security Council spokesman told us. The stories of those on Finney’s list underscored how dire the situation was. Full disclosure, West Wing Playbook sent Psaki the information on an Afghan translator whose wife and 10-month-old son were stranded. “I have absolutely no means to come back to Kabul to rescue my family. Please let my family enter the Airport and board an evacuation flight,” the translator wrote in an email, which ultimately made its way into Finney and Psaki’s hands. Both the translator’s wife and son were on dependent visas, and were approved and vetted by the U.S. government to enter the country. The woman tried three times to get to the airport after getting on an embassy list but kept getting turned away — because she wasn’t with her husband. On her third attempt, she couldn’t safely manage her way through the mob scene that had gathered outside the airport with a baby in her hands. “Right now, she and her 10 month old son are about 3km away from the airport,” read an email from a former government employee who was helping the family. That was Aug. 24. By the 25th, both the woman and her child were on a flight out of Kabul. “THEY GOT ON A PLANE!!!” the woman helping the family said in a text that we received from an intermediary trying to help coordinate the departure. That day, Finney marked their names in green. But that story, and others, has not made Finney’s work any less of a slog. The State Department last week told CNN there are still as many as 200 Americans trying to get out of Afghanistan. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you WILLIAM HENAGAN, special assistant to the deputy chief of staff? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. Or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098. | 
