Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman could be dismissed from a key National Security Council post, from which he sought to end USAID funding for The HALO Trust’s life-saving, peace-promoting Artsakh de-mining program.
The White House is weighing a plan to dismiss Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council after he testified in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, preparing to position the move as part of a broader effort to shrink the foreign policy bureaucracy, Bloomberg quotes two people familiar with the matter as saying
Vindman was one of the Democrats’ most crucial witness in their impeachment proceedings – a decorated Army lieutenant colonel, who raised the alarm over the president’s July 25 telephone call with Ukraine’s leader.
Before Vindman’s testimony, the only account of that call came from an anonymous whistle-blower whose identity has remained largely hidden to this day, and a partial transcript released by the White House.
Vindman testified that Trump exerted “inappropriate” pressure on Ukraines’ president Volodimir Zelenskiy. Vindman said he felt a responsibility to come forward.
He said the Trump-Zelenskiy call so alarmed him that he reported it through the administration’s legal channels. “Without hesitation, I knew that I had to report this to the White House counsel,” Vindman testified in November.
