QOTD -- Alexander Vindman Speaks Out

"At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.  [snip]

"Despite some personal turmoil, I remain hopeful for the future for both my family and for our nation. Impeachment exposed Trump’s corruption, but the confluence of a pandemic, a financial crisis and the stoking of societal divisions has roused the soul of the American people. A groundswell is building that will issue a mandate to reject hate and bigotry and a return to the ideals that set the United States apart from the rest of the world. I look forward to contributing to that effort." -- Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Ret.), in a Washington Post op/ ed.  This is a courageous, intelligent, ethical person who deserves a prominent place in a future Biden Administration so he can continue to make contributions to his adopted country.

QOTD -- Alexander Vindman

"Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a president. Between honoring his oath or protecting his career. Between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers. These are choices that no one in the United States should confront, especially one who has dedicated his life to serving it.

"LTC Vindman did what the law compelled him to do; and for that he was bullied by the president and his proxies.  And yet, LTC Vindman would not be intimidated and will not be corrupted. He did what he has always done: put the interests of his country ahead of his own." -- Partial statement by Amb. David Pressman, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's attorney, on Vindman's retirement from the Army today.  Vindman is the highly decorated combat veteran who appeared at the House impeachment hearings on Donald "Impeached Forever" Trump, and testified about the impeachable behavior he witnessed while working at the National Security Council. 

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., discusses the impeachment inquiry testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, specifically his belief that speaking the truth because "right matters" is an American virtue:

... His words were a veritable balm in Gilead for a nation sickened to its soul by the orgy of lies and alibis that now passes for leadership. And it hardly seemed worth it (indeed, would have been beside the point) to bring up all the times right has not mattered in America, to subpoena the ghosts of genocide, enslavement, exploitation and imprisonment haunting our history and ask them to testify against Vindman’s evocation of national virtue.

Because what he invoked was not America the actual, but America the aspiration — the more perfect union. And give us credit. If it’s true this is a country that has frequently betrayed its noblest ideals, it’s also true this is a country that had noble ideals to betray in the first place. It was to that America, that dream of America, that Vindman referred.
But even it has seen better days. Even the dream of who we are has been ransacked by the president and his defenders, men and women who would rather walk through fire in gasoline-soaked underwear than admit the truth of his malfeasance.

(We quoted Paul Krugman at length yesterday on the utter corruption of the Republican Party, and would suggest reading his full op/ ed again as a companion to Pitts's op/ ed.)

To no one's surprise, the servile rats in the regime of nitwit crime family boss Donald "Donnie Little Hands" Trump were working overtime to concoct a reason for the withholding of military aid to Ukraine (other than the true reason, that it was extortion/ bribery for Ukraine manufacturing dirt on the Bidens):

A confidential White House review of President Trump’s decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal, according to three people familiar with the records.

The research by the White House Counsel’s Office, which was triggered by a congressional impeachment inquiry announced in September, includes early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after the president had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance, according to the three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations. [snip]

In the early August email exchanges, Mulvaney asked acting OMB director Russell Vought for an update on the legal rationale for withholding the aid and how much longer it could be delayed. Trump had made the decision the prior month without an assessment of the reasoning or legal justification, according to two White House officials. Emails show Vought and OMB staffers arguing that withholding aid was legal, while officials at the National Security Council and State Department protested. OMB lawyers said that it was legal to withhold the aid, as long as they deemed it a “temporary” hold, according to people familiar with the review.

Is Chief of Rats Mick Mulvaney lawyered up?  You better believe he is (he's got Russian spy Maria Butina's lawyer representing him -- you can't make this stuff up)!  And, it doesn't help that Mulvaney works in a back- stabbing, CYA snakepit:

Cipollone, who wants Mulvaney’s job, launches review that finds Mulvaney up to his neck in Ukraine scandal, and the results leak. The WH is not a fun place to work right now. https://t.co/xlufItHBRe

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) November 24, 2019

Adam Serwer writes about Trump's (and his rotted out party's) conspiracy against democracy, and how the Ukraine scandal fits a pattern:

The Republican Party has responded to the increasing diversity of the electorate with an accelerating intolerance for ethnic and religious minorities, and with elaborate schemes to disenfranchise rival constituencies and rig election rules to its advantage. Crucial to this effort is its conviction that the Republican electorate is the only one that can confer legitimacy on elected officials, and that the party’s political opponents are no longer wrong but fundamentally illegitimate, faithless usurpers with no right to determine the direction of the country. This has manifested in the quasi-religious dogma that Trump represents the will of Real America, and therefore defiance of his will is itself a form of treason.

Believing that Republican officials will be convinced by the evidence proffered by Trump’s own staff and political appointees is a mistake, because the underlying facts are not genuinely in dispute. Trumpists are not operating from an ethical framework that even allows acknowledgment that the president is capable of being guilty. Trump is the nation, and the nation cannot commit treason against itself. On the contrary, it is Joe Biden who is guilty of betrayal, defying the tribune of the people by seeking to run against him, and it is Trump’s treacherous staff who convict themselves of treason with every statement that implicates the president. The more evidence of Trump’s misdeeds the Democrats uncover, the more they reveal themselves as traitors. For Trumpists, there is no higher patriotism than bending to Trump’s will, and no more base corruption than defying it.

 The most recent example of the latter being the sacking of Navy Secretary Spencer.

As always, we close by highly recommending you check out Infidel 753's link round-up (and bookmark his blog, by the way), for the most comprehensive array of "various interesting stuff" that he's found searching the Internet.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article237674689.html#storylink=cpy

 

QOTD II -- "Callow And Cowardly Attacks"

“I want to take a moment to recognize the courage of my colleagues who have appeared and are scheduled to appear before this Committee.  I want to state that the vile character attacks on these distinguished and honorable public servants is reprehensible. It is natural to disagree and engage in spirited debate, this has been our custom since the time of our Founding Fathers, but we are better than callow and cowardly attacks.”  -- Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (USA), in his opening statement today to the House impeachment inquiry committee.

Ukraine Shakedown Call Memo Had "Crucial" Phrases Edited Out

While what was in the memorandum (not a transcript!) of the July 25 shakedown call between insipid crime family boss Donald "Dumb Don" Trump and the Ukrainian president was damning enough, it appears some of those ellipses in the memorandum hid more incriminating evidence.  What a surprise!

The revelation came from testimony yesterday by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman:

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the White House transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.  [snip]

It is not clear why some of Colonel Vindman’s changes were not made, but the decision by a White House lawyer to quickly lock down the reconstructed transcript subverted the normal process of handling such documents, according to people familiar with the matter. 

In the whistle-blower complaint that was made public, the C.I.A. officer wrote that placing the rough transcript in the server was part of an effort to lock it down, restrict access and a sign that “White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”  (our emphasis)

Our reaction when we saw those ellipses in the memorandum was "what incriminating evidence did they edit out?"  By now, though, it's almost like carrying coal to Newcastle,  thanks to what they left in the memorandum anyway, multiple corroborating testimonies, and the blurting confessions by Dumb Don and his acting chief of staff.  But the selective editing and locking it down in the secure system could be evidence of a cover- up and obstruction of Congress, though there was no recording of the call on the American side to match to the memorandum and the rough transcript is locked away for now.  All things that would happen if you're totes not hiding more quid pro quo evidence.

NSC Official To Testify About "Alarming" Ukraine Shakedown Campaign

Another White (Supremacist) House official who listened to the July 25 shakedown call between crime family boss Donald "Dumb Don" Trump and the Ukrainian president will confirm today that there was a specific request made by Dumb Don for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. There also should be immediate repercussions for morally-/ethically- /memory- challenged Amb. Gordon Sondland from this:

A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky will tell House investigators on Tuesday that he was so alarmed by the Ukraine pressure campaign that he twice alerted a top White House lawyer.

Lt Col. Alexander Vindman, who has served on the National Security Council since 2018, will recount overhearing U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland — a key player in the pressure campaign — discuss with Ukrainian officials the need for the country to launch investigations into the 2016 election and the Bidens in order to secure a Zelensky meeting with Trump.  [snip]

The conversation, according to the testimony, happened after a White House meeting with the Ukrainians had already been cut short by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton when Sondland brought up the request for the investigations.

“Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb.
Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into
the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma,” Vindman’s prepared remarks said. “I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push.” [snip]

Vindman also listened in on the now-infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, in which the President asked the Ukrainian leader for a “favor.”

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” Vindman plans on saying. The statement goes on to say that were Ukraine to investigate the Biden family or Burisma — the gas firm on whose board Hunter Biden sat — “it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained.”

“This would all undermine U.S. national security,” the statement reads.  (our emphasis)

The text of Lt. Col. Vindman's opening statement is provided at the link above.

Given the White House's own account of the call, the admission on camera by Dumb Don and lickspittle twit Mick Mulvaney, and now multiple eyewitnesses, there can be absolutely no question about the nature or intent of the "request" that was made and what "deliverables" were being held in abeyance to get that request acted on by Ukraine.

Now Sondland's previous sworn testimony is called into question on several key points by at least three witnesses that we know of:  former Amb. William Taylor, former NSC staffer Fiona Hill and now Lt. Col. Vindman.  Both have stated there was a definite quid pro quo that Sondland was fully aware of and engaged in communicating.  Moreover, Sondland's own attorney attempted damage control over the weekend by leaking that Sondland, in private testimony, said he believed there was a quid pro quo involved in the Ukraine shakedown.  Watch today's testimony from Vindman spur Sondland to scurry back to the Hill to amend his public testimony.  Let's hope his resignation follows shortly thereafter.

BONUS: Trump's depraved cultists have already begun their McCarthyite smear campaign against Vindman, a decorated Army officer and a patriot.  Also, be sure to read this background on Lt. Col. Vindman from Philip Bump (with a Ken Burns tie- in), which makes the cultists' smears all the more depraved.

BONUS II:

I hope everyone understands what it means for every immigrant, every Jew, and everyone with roots in countries outside of Western Europe if Republicans get away with smearing a purple heart winner because his family are Soviet emigres. https://t.co/MSztk9NS6w

— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) October 29, 2019

Vindman served in the Army. On the other hand, Duffy served on *checks notes* The Real World Boston https://t.co/Jv1u8hJLcC

— *Palpatine voice* UNLIMITED DADPUNS🍝 (@AdamSerwer) October 29, 2019

BONUS III:  Sondland might not escape with a "let me just amend my previous lies, er, testimony, please" gambit --

Based on all the testimony so far, I believe that Ambassador Gordon Sondland committed perjury. https://t.co/lOGRj8s1yP

— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) October 29, 2019

(Photo: Lt. Col. Vindman)