Trump justifies dismissal of employee who testified against him

President Donald Trump justified the dismissal of a member of his administration who gave embarrassing testimony to him this Saturday during the impeachment procedure that targeted him.

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Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an advisor on European affairs for the White House National Security Council, was removed from office on Friday shortly before a diplomat who also testified during the parliamentary inquiry. Acquitted on Wednesday by the Senate in his dismissal trial, Mr. Trump refuses to want to carry out since " reprisals " against those who have not abounded in his direction in recent months. He claimed on Twitter that he did not know Mr. Vindman and that he " never spoke to him ".

He submits that the soldier, born in Ukraine and arrived in the United States at the age of 3, was accused by his hierarchy of " insubordination ", of having " problems of judgment " and of "having done leak information ”. He also accuses him of having " erroneously reported " the contents of his " perfect appeal " in July with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, at the heart of the procedure which has won the republican billionaire an indictment for abuse of power and obstructs the work of Congress.

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Donald Trump had asked during this exchange that Kiev announces the opening of an investigation into his democratic opponent Joe Biden. A request deemed " inappropriate " by Alexander Vindman, who had listened to the live call and decided to alert the lawyers of the presidency. He returned to this episode in November during a very embarrassing congressional hearing for the president.

Mr. Vindman's lawyer denounced this Saturday in a press release sent to the American media the " manifestly inaccurate statements " of the president against his client, referring to a " campaign of intimidation " on the part of " the man the most powerful in the world . " Donald Trump also recalled Friday the United States ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, who had also delivered before parliamentarians a compromising testimony against him.

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" Ambassador Sondland and Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Vindman are courageous public servants, heroes and patriots, " said elected Democrat Mark DeSaulnier on Twitter. " Trump's revenge against them for telling the truth is an action worthy of dictators and criminals, not the president of the world's largest democracy ."