Despite U.S. whistleblower protections and warnings against reprisals, a former Trump and Bush administration advisor believes Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman must be "court martialed" for speaking out against the president and violating his chain of command.
Christian Whiton tweeted Saturday:
"To protect the military from being seen as political, Vindman must be court martialed for speaking contemptuously of the President and violating the chain of command. The law isn't optional just because an officer hates his commander in chief."
Whiton is not the first one to call for Vindman answering to his violation of chain of command when he facilitated the whistleblower's complaint against President Donald Trump and subsequently testifying against the president in the House impeachment inquiry.
The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis tweeted in November:
"Vindman was insubordinate, ignored chain of command, leaked, and lied to Congress about not knowing who the whistleblower is, when he clearly knows because he was the whistleblower's primary source.
"He deserves to be court-martialied under the UCMJ."
Even one of the Senate jurors took to Twitter this week to call out Vindman as a "political activist." Citing his commanding officer, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., tweeted:
"Vindman's commanding officer, Army Lt. Col. Jim Hickman: 'Do not let the uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform.'"
Blackburn then spoke out against Vindman to Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle":
"You look at what his commanders, Vindman's commanders, have said, and he has a problem with judgment," Blackburn told host Laura Ingraham this week. "That had been pointed out. He had one commander that said he is a political activist in uniform. He has had problems with going outside of his chain of command, which is exactly what he did here.
"And I talk to a lot of military members on a regular basis. They have a real problem with some of the things and the manner in which he conducted himself in this matter."
Vindman is a member of the National Security Council, which works in the West Wing of the White House. He was listening in on a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last July and said he was concerned about Trump's request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of Trump's rivals in the upcoming election.
Vindman, a Ukrainian-American who worked his way through the military ranks before being posted to the White House in July 2018, testified during the House impeachment inquiry last fall and relayed his concerns to lawmakers. He received a Purple Heart for injuries in a roadside bomb during service in Iraq. His family came to the United States when he was a child.
"What I heard was inappropriate," Vindman told the House Intelligence Committee in November.
Vindman said he reported his concerns after the call "out of a sense of duty … because they had significant national security implications for our country."
The call between Trump and Zelenskiy was the central piece of evidence in the House's impeachment of Trump. The president is now on trial in the Senate.
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said Vindman would be moved to the Pentagon in a "streamlining" move.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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