Trump emerged victorious from his dismissal trial, did the time for the purge ring at the White House? This is in any case what thinks David Pressman, the lawyer of the lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, who has just been dismissed without mercy and escorted out of the White House this Friday. Considered one of the best experts on Ukraine, this adviser to the National Security had testified against the president during the dismissal process. "There is no doubt in the minds of any American as to why this man's job is finished, why this country now has one less soldier serving him in the White House." LTC Vindman was asked to leave because he told the truth, " said David Pressman in a statement.
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Alexander Vindman, who was one of the few direct witnesses to the July 25 phone call between the President and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, testified in November to the Democrats-led commission of inquiry to the House of Representatives. In particular, Vindman said, "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I did not think it was appropriate to demand that a government investigate an American citizen ... all of this would jeopardize the national security of the United States. Vindman told investigators that he had "voiced (his) concerns to senior counsel for the National Security Council" of the White House after the appeal to the heart of the removal procedure. The democrats criticize Donald Trump for having asked Zelensky to open an investigation into his democratic rival Joe Biden, possible rival in the presidential election of 2020., and for having for this purpose withheld military aid to this small allied country.
Asked earlier on Friday that he may fire Vindman, Trump told reporters, "I am not happy with him. You think I'm supposed to be happy with him? ... They will make this decision. The president, however, brushed aside rumors that he would also seek to get rid of another key witness in his trial, namely his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, whom the Democrats wanted to hear before the Senate.
"Speak out against bad practices"
As for the former American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who delivered a striking public testimony to Congress last November, she confirmed in a Washington Post editorial that she was leaving the diplomatic service of the State Department, in which she continued to work until now. The one who had been fired last year justified her decision by saying that it was "the American way of speaking out against bad practices", and warned Thursday against the risks of "blind obedience" to leaders. Without directly mentioning Donald Trump, whitewashed Wednesday by Republican senators committed to his cause, she called for the United States not to become “a country where speaking out against one's country is a dangerous act.” “I seen dictatorships in the world, where blind obedience is the norm and people who tell the truth are threatened with punishment or death, " warned the former diplomat who also served in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
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Marie Yovanovitch was abruptly removed from office last spring after being subjected to a smear campaign led by Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Relatives of the American president criticized him for not having put pressure on Ukraine so that the country opened an investigation into the son of Joe Biden.