Alexander Vindman, the lieutenant colonel who testified against President Trump in impeachment hearings, was escorted out of the White House by security on Friday after being dismissed from his job. Vindman, a top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council, was due to leave his job in July but was abruptly pushed out on Friday. “There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House,” his lawyer David Pressman said. “LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.” Politico reported that Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny, a senior NSC lawyer, was also fired.
His ouster came two days after the Senate acquitted Trump of coercing Ukraine into investigating the president’s political rivals. Vindman had testified during impeachment hearings that he was surprised when he heard Trump pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden. He told lawmakers that he reported his concerns to other NSC officials. Trump had vowed to seek pay back for those involved in his impeachment. He foreshadowed Vindman’s departure on Friday, telling reporters that he “wasn’t happy” with the colonel. “You think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m not.”
Vindman will retain his army rank but it’s not clear what job he will take up. “We do not comment on personnel matters,” a NSC spokesman John Ullyot wrote to The Daily Beast on Friday afternoon minutes after the news broke.
