Editor’s note: The headline of this article has been updated to more accurately reflect Vidman’s pending departure from the NSC:
2/ agencies and they eventually go back. That’s true as far as it goes. But he was asked a pretty specific question about whether Vindman was losing his job over the testimony. If he is not it’s pretty easy to say, no he’s not. No NSC appointments from any of these agencies …
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 11, 2019
Original article below:
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified on October 29 concerning his reaction to Donald Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky, was removed from the National Security Council on Sunday. In an interview on CBS “Face the Nation,” National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, who replaced John Bolton in that position in September, said that Vindman would be leaving his position along with several others as part of a “streamlining” of the National Security Council.
O’Brien noted that Vindman, who is an active officer in the Army, serves on the NSC through the Department of Defense. “Everyone who’s detailed at the NSC … people are going to start going back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks,” said O’Brien. New folks who, presumably, Trump believes he can control and prevent from reporting issues or supplying testimony in a matter with deep national security implications.
O’Brien was asked if Vindman was being removed because he was “scheduled to rotate out” or whether there was “any retaliation against him.” In reply, O’Brien said, “I never retaliate against anyone myself.” Asked again whether Vindman had been scheduled to leave, O’Brien replied “there will be a time for everyone who is detailed there.” The evasion in both of those answers is clear.
View the complete November 11 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.