Tag: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

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News Round-Up: September 14, 2020

Professional English Rugby player Levi Davis (image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • Gay Star News: Professional English Rugby player Levi Davis (above) has come out as bisexual – a first for a professional player with his career still ahead of him. The 22-year-old is also famous for his other love – music. Last year he formed a band to take part in the Celebrity X Factor competition and got through to the semi-finals. • Attitude Magazine: “I realized that being gay and growing up around people and in a culture where that wasn’t celebrated – where it was reviled, in many ways – had an impact on me. Happy as I am, I’m still working out the fear I grew up with: that by revealing who I really am, I will somehow lose the love of the people who are important to me.” – Jim Parsons in a new interview with the UK publication. • Lambda Legal: A federal district judge ruled in favor of a woman who was denied Social Security survivor benefits after her partner of more than two decades had passed away. Helen Thornton and Marge Brown lived as a couple for 27 years, purchasing a home together, and raising a child. Brown passed away in 2006 of cancer years before marriage equality came to Washington state. The Social Security Administration (SSA) refused to give Thornton survivor benefits after Brown passed away.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
• The Atlantic: “They may or may not have dirt on him (Trump), but they don’t have to use it. They have more effective and less risky ways to employ him. He has aspirations to be the kind of leader that Putin is, and so he admires him. He likes authoritarian strongmen who act with impunity, without checks and balances. So he’ll try to please Putin. In the Army we call this ‘free chicken,’ something you don’t have to work for — it just comes to you. This is what the Russians have in Trump: free chicken.” – former National Security Council official Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman. • Axios: In a new clip from an interview with Bob Woodward, Donald Trump said that his relationships with world leaders are better “the tougher and meaner they are,” naming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an example. • CBSN: Meeting with officials in California to discuss the wildfires that are devastating the state on Monday, Donald Trump pushed back when Wade Crowfoot, secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, told him the science regarding climate change needed to be looked at. “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch,” said Trump. “I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot replied. “I don’t think science knows actually,” Trump remarked with a smirk.

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Impeachment Witness Lt. Colonel Vindman Escorted From White House

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

NBC News is reporting Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who testified during the House impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, was escorted from the White House Friday afternoon.

“LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” his attorney David Pressman said in a statement. “The truth has cost LTC Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy.”

Pressman added that, “the most powerful man in the world – buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit” had “decided to exact revenge” on Vindman.

Vindman had, as part of his duties, listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy, which was at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

The Washington Post first reported on efforts by the White House to push out Vindman, citing two people familiar with the move, as part of a broader targeting by Trump of perceived enemies in the wake of his acquittal in the Senate after a two-week trial. The Post reported that Vindman would be reassigned to a job at the Defense Department.

Other than to embarrass him, there was no reason to “escort” a decorated Army officer honored with a Purple Heart medal after being injured in Iraq in 2004. In his opening statement during his appearance before Congress, Vindman included an emotional message to his father. “You made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family,” said Vindman. “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”

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Cadet Bone Spurs Mocks Lt. Col. Vindman For Wearing His Uniform Today

While Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was testifying before the House committee handling the ongoing impeachment inquiry, Donald Trump had the bad taste to question Vindman’s attire. From ABC News:

Down Pennsylvania Avenue from the hearing at the Capitol, President Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, struck a dismissive tone when asked whether he thinks Lt. Col. Vindman is a credible witness, making note of the moment when Vindman corrected Nunes for referring to him as “Mr. Vidman” and also seemed to question his motives in wearing a military uniform to testify.

“I don’t know him, as he says Lieutenant Colonel, I understand someone had the misfortune of calling him ‘mister’ and he corrected them. I never saw the man, I understand now he wears his uniform when he goes in. No, I don’t know Vindman at all,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting, ABC’s Jordyn Phelps reports.

It appears Cadet Bone Spurs – our Commander in Chief – is unaware that per Army regulations, “A soldier performing duties in an official capacity will normally be in uniform.”

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Army Prepared To Move Vindman & Family Out Of Concern For His Safety From Trump Supporters

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
The Wall Street Journal reports the U.S. Army ramped up plans to possibly move Lt. Colonel Vindman and his family to a military base in properly ensure their security in advance of his testimony today in the ongoing impeachment inquiry.

The U.S. Army is prepared to move Col. Vindman and his family onto a military base in the area to ensure their security if it is determined that they are in physical danger, according to U.S. officials. Army security officials in recent weeks conducted a security assessment at Col. Vindman’s request, reviewing both his and his family’s physical security and their online security, according to U.S. officials.

Army security officials have also been monitoring Col. Vindman and his family around the clock to make sure there aren’t any imminent threats, officials said. “The Army will make sure he’s safe, and the Army is actively supporting any safety needs as deemed necessary,” an official said. “It’s hard that he has been catapulted into the public eye. He served his country honorably for 20 years, and you can imagine this is a tough situation for him and his family.”

From Lt. Colonel Vindman’s appearance on Capitol Hill today: