U.S. President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One after arriving at Charlotte Douglas International Airport prior to a campaign event at in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., February 7, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis
February 7, 2020
By Jeff Mason and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday removed Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the White House’s top expert on Ukraine, from his position after he testified against President Donald Trump during the impeachment process, Vindman’s lawyer said.
Vindman was escorted out of the White House where he had worked on the National Security Council, lawyer David Pressman said in a statement.
“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. LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” Pressman said.
Vindman testified to the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry in November that Trump made an improper demand of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July phone call that became the centerpiece of the probe of the Republican president.
Vindman told a Democratic-run committee “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing” in the phone call. Trump asked Zelenskiy to launch investigations into both Democratic rival Joe Biden and a widely debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Trump emerged victorious from his trial this week with a vote in the Senate, controlled by fellow Republicans who rejected abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges.
Asked earlier on Friday about media reports that he might remove Vindman, Trump told reporters: “I’m not happy with him. You think I’m supposed to be happy with him?…They’re going to be making that decision.”
A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that Vindman would be reassigned to the Defense Department.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert, David Morgan, Mark Hosenball, Karen Freifeld and Idrees Ali; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Howard Goller and Daniel Wallis)
