The firing of Amb. Gordon Sondland on Friday came not only before he planned to resign, but it also came against the advice of Republican senators, according to The New York Times.
Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was supposed to submit a voluntary resignation, but since he did not want to go when the Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother were walked out of the White House, Sondland has informed the State Department would need to be fired to leave on the same day, sources told the Times.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had warned the president a firing of Sondland would look punitive and cause a political backlash, according to the sources.
But President Donald Trump had wanted to make the moves together to send a message to his administration, per the report.
Sondland was recalled from his post just hours after Vindman and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, were escorted from the White House as members of the national security council.
Sondland did not want to announce his resignation and be clumped in with those impeachment witnesses, per the report.
Collins' statement to the Times did not suggest she had any problem with removing the ambassador. She also clarified a prior statement she "believed" Trump had learned a lesson in the impeachment saga.
"The lesson that I hoped the president had learned was that he should not enlist the help of a foreign government in investigating a political rival," her statement read, per the Times. "It had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he should fire people who testified in a way that he perceived as harmful to him."
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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