Hillary Clinton's allies used a QR code from a bag of chips to make a visa look more official in a desperate bid to get women out of Afghanistan: book

• Hillary Clinton and her allies went to incredible lengths to get vulnerable women out of Afghanistan.
• Clinton was fearful of how the women would be treated once the Taliban took control.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her allies went to incredible lengths to get vulnerable women out of Afghanistan during the chaotic final days of America's longest war, going so far as to use a QR code from a bag of chips to make a foreign visa look more official, according to a new book.

In "The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future", journalist Franklin Foer recounts the chaos inside and outside of the White House as the deadline for the US to leave Afghanistan by the end of August 2021 quickly approached.

Clinton's struggle to get vulnerable women out is depicted in great detail.

Women in Afghanistan had seen their rights advance greatly after the Taliban was ousted from power. The fear was also that progress would end after American forces left.

Despite her connections, Clinton was unable to get the support she needed from the federal government, which was already overwhelmed with making sure every US citizen and those with other official documents could get out in time, according to the book, which chronicles the saga over multiple chapters.

Clinton, Foer wrote, frantically called world leaders in a bid to arrange a final place where vulnerable women could resettle and get the support they needed to make sure the women reached their destination. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quickly agreed.

Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan, a former Clinton aide, reportedly reprimanded her after she called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to seek additional support. Clinton was unrepentant.

"'What are you doing calling the Ukrainian government?' Jake Sullivan asked her," Foer wrote. "'Well, she responded, 'I wouldn't have to call if you guys would.'"

Out of a list of 1,500 names, Clinton and her allies asked 60 women to begin traveling to the network of safe houses they arranged in Kabul to help them reach Hamid Karzai International Airport. To make sure they got through, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had told Clinton that the women needed to wear something that would make it easy for them to stand out of the crowd of people desperate to get on one of the final planes. They settled on white scarves. Their first attempt failed.

After the failure, Clinton's aides organized a series of buses for the women on her list. They would also be escorted by Qataris, who would ensure the buses would pass through into the airport without any issue. But the Taliban, who were effectively responsible for most of the airport's security, suddenly boarded a bus. They demanded that the women have Albanian visas. (Clinton had negotiated for the women to live in temporary housing in Albania before they left for Canada.)

A staff member for Vital Voices, one of the nonprofits in Clinton's network, was able to create electronic visas to send to the women's phones. Albanian officials, Foer wrote, wanted to make the digital document look more official. Incredibly, they chose a very low-tech solution.

"The Albanians felt that a QR code would make the email look more official," Foer wrote. "Since there was a bag of potato chips sitting around, they took a photo of the QR code on the side of the packaging and appended it to the improved visa."

The Taliban later OKed the visas. The women were able to board their chartered flight.

"The women on the bus escaped to Albania — and so did more than a thousand other Afghan women and their families Hillary Clinton and her groups managed to rescue," Foer wrote.

Representatives for Sullivan and Clinton did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.