VINDMAN ADMITS HE MADE UP ELEMENTS
OF TRUMP-ZELENSKY PHONE CALL SUMMARY
BY LUIS MIGUEL
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
National Security Council (NSC) member and Ukraine expert Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman admitted during his testimony before Congress that he made up elements of President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an official summary.Prior to the call, Vindman provided the president with talking points about corruption, but President Trump ultimately did not use them.Vindman’s written summary read, in part:President Trump underscored the unwavering support of the United States for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity — within its internationally recognized borders — and expressed his commitment to work together with President-elect Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption.Yet during his testimony before the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Vindman acknowledged that he included the topic of rooting out corruption in his summary even though President Trump did not actually bring it up during the call.Asked by a Democrat counsel whether his summary was false, Vindman replied, “That’s not entirely accurate, but I’m not sure I would describe it as false, it was consistent with U.S. policy.”Vindman added that he saw the corruption rhetoric as a “messaging platform” to describe U.S. policy toward Ukraine.The 44-year-old Army Colonel and NSC director for European affairs is considered a key witness in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which seeks to determine whether President Trump engaged in “bribery” by attempting to force Ukraine to investigate former Vice President and current 2020 presidential contender Joe Biden—an act Democrats claim is tantamount to asking a foreign nation to interfere in an American election.During his testimony, Vindman, who was born in Ukraine and on three occasions was offered that country’s defense minister position, told members of Congress on Tuesday that he considered it “inappropriate” for President Trump to request that his Ukrainian counterpart “look into” Biden’s relationship with the natural gas company Burisma.“It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US citizen and political opponent,” Vindman said in his opening remarks. “It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play.”Vindman said that due to his military experience, he interpreted the president’s request to the foreign leader as an order.The culture I come from, the military culture, when a senior asks you to do something, even if it's polite and pleasant, it's not to be taken as a request, it's to be taken as an order. In this case, the power disparity between the two leaders, my impression is that in order to get the White House meeting, President Zelensky would have to deliver these investigations.“Well, I have to tell you I think it's nonsense,” shot back Representative Chris Stewart (R-Utah). “Look, I was in the military, and I could distinguish between a favor and an order and a demand and so could my subordinates. And I think President Zelensky did as well.”President Trump’s request to probe Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, involves the former vice president’s demand in 2016 that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, or else lose $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.At the time, Hunter Biden was a Burisma board member making $50,000 a month. Joe Biden bragged about his role in Shokin’s firing in an event organized by the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), of which he is a member.Vindman refused to say whether Biden’s threat to Peroshenko was “wrong,” even though it amounts to the same thing Democrats accuse President Trump of doing (the difference is that Zelensky has publicly said he was not threatened or pressured by the American president).Vindman previously told lawmakers during a closed-door testimony that he reported his concerns about the Trump-Zelensky phone call up the chain of command. During his public testimony on Tuesday, however, and upon the questioning of Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Vindman admitted that he never went to his superior, Tim Morrison.Instead, he leaked the matter to numerous individuals, including NSC lawyer John Eisenberg and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent.“You don’t talk to your boss, but you talk to your brother, you talk to your lawyer, you talked to Secretary Kent and you talked to [the whistleblower] — is that right?” Jordan asked in his grilling of Vindman.Trump ally Roger Stone was convicted last week for lying to Congress during the Russia investigation and could face 20 years in prison. Will Vindman get the same treatment?