Vindman: Leaker To The Whistleblower To Be Booted From National Security Council

In what can only be described as the most vitriolic, unpatriotic exercise in reversing the results of the 2016 Presidential Election and removing President Trump from the 2020 ballot, one player who gave testimony before the House Intelligence Committee during the President’s impeachment inquiry will be dismissed from the National Security Council (NSC).

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman leaked information from the President’s July 25, 2019 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the whistleblower.

Adam Schiff called Vindman a patriot. “Colonel Vindman, we have seen far more scurrilous attacks on your character and watched as certain personalities on Fox have questioned your loyalty. I note that you have shed blood for America, and we owe you an immense debt of gratitude. I hope no one on this Committee will become part of those vicious attacks.”

Whether you agree with Schiff’s statement hinges upon whether you believe Vindman acted dutifully or mutinously.  I believe the term to be highly ill-fitting.  Now, before you decide to chastise me for my opinion, I would ask you to consider this:  throughout this blog I take every opportunity to praise our service members, laud their patriotism and profusely thank them for standing guard over our liberty.  I will never extend my praise to a worm who vomits mutiny over a policy disagreement.

Remember also that Lead Republican Counsel Steve Castor revealed a disturbing fact during his line of questioning of Vindman.  He had been offered a job as Ukrainian Defense Minister by the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Danylyuk.

“For the Ukrainians—President Zelensky, Mr. Danylyuk—to bestow that honor on you, at least asking you, that was a big honor, correct?” Vindman said that Danylyuk had suggested he take the job three times.

Finally, the President can begin to clean out the viper's nest in the NSC.  I hope Vindman and his brother both have their security clearances revoked.

Did Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman Start This Coup?

During Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, Lt. Col. Vindman made a strategic error during his public testimony.  He appears to have perjured himself.

For the record, Vindman was on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky.  When ranking member Devin Nunes pressed him on whether he discussed the call with anyone outside the White House, the good little soldier said he discussed the call with U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary George Kent and an “individual in the Intelligence Community.”

In a published report at The Washington Examiner, Byron York noted Vindman’s closed-door testimony in the bunker in the basement of the Capitol Building revealed he had “twice taken his concerns to Eisenberg [National Security Council Legal Advisor].  He also told his twin brother Yevgeny Vindman, who is also an Army lieutenant colonel and serves as a National Security Council lawyer. He also told another NSC official, John Erath, and he gave what he characterized as a partial readout of the call to George Kent, a career State Department official who dealt with Ukraine. That led to an obvious question: Did Vindman take his concerns to anyone else? Did he discuss the Trump-Zelensky call with anyone else? It was a reasonable question and an important one. Republicans asked it time and time again. Vindman refused to answer, with his lawyer, Michael Volkov, sometimes belligerently joining in. Through it all, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff stood firm in favor of keeping his committee in the dark.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Vindman, "You never leaked information?"  He replied, "I never did. I never would. That is preposterous that I would do that."

"Your boss had concerns about your judgment, your former boss, Dr. [Fiona] Hill, had concerns about your judgment, your colleagues had concerns about your judgment, and your colleagues felt there were times when you leaked information," Jordan said. "Any idea why they have those impressions?"

It’s vital to remember Lt. Col. Vindman clearly stated in his public testimony he did speak to an “individual in the Intelligence Community” and when Nunes pressed him to identify the person his attorney intervened to say his client was not going to answer the question.  At that point Chairman Schiff gaveled in to stop the questioning, but Nunes countered asking the Chairman how it was possible to identify the whistleblower if no one knows the name.

“Under advice of my counsel and instructions of the Chairman, I have been advised not to provide any specifics on who I have spoken to inside the Intelligence Community,” Vindman said. “But I can offer that these people were properly cleared individuals with a need to know.”

Nunes said Republicans had tried to subpoena the whistleblower, but the motion was tabled by committee Democrats. Nunes ended his questioning by calling the hearings an “impeachment inquisition.”

Alexander Vindman looks really bad here as he gets grilled by Jim Jordan pic.twitter.com/3rq8qIGpM3

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 19, 2019

After being vaporized by Jordan’s questioning, Vindman snapped back saying, “I was doing my job.”

The “individual in the Intelligence Community” looks more and more like 33-year-old Eric Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House who had worked with Joe Biden and John Brennan.  Ciaramella left his National Security Council post in the West Wing of the White House in mid-2017 amid concerns about leaks to the media.  He has since returned to Langley, VA where the CIA headquarters is located.

Earlier this year, Adam Schiff recruited two of Ciaramella’s closest allies at the NSC—both of whom were also Obama holdovers—to join his committee staff. He hired one, Sean Misko, in August—the same month the whistleblower complaint about Trump’s phone call was filed.

The graphic accompanying this blog post is Photoshopped®, but then you knew that already.  Photographs of Ciaramella are nearly impossible to find.  Most of the photographs you can find are blurry, but I lucked up and found four very interesting pictures of our whistleblower with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

I chose to create the above graphic of Ciaramella with Sen. Schumer to highlight his now-ominous warning from January 2017 on the Rachel Maddow Show:  “Let me tell you;  You take on the Intelligence Community—they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”