Special to WorldTribune.com
SWAMP WATCH
By Bill Juneau
Like a worn out and tarnished penny, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has reemerged on the Washington stage, and now is looking for money. He and his lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit against former President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Trump’s oldest son, Donald, and two other Trump loyalists for their alleged bullying and disparaging treatment of him.
The stone-faced Vindman, was the key figure who assisted Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerrold “Fat Jerry” Nadler in bringing about the impeachment of President Trump in Dec. 2019. Vindman’s testimony about a Trump telephone conversation with the new Ukrainian president was simply a bucket of lies, and Trump was acquitted of all wrongdoing by the U.S. Senate on the following Feb. 5.
After the former president’s exoneration, Vindman, the principle complaining witness against him, contends that he was reassigned from his position in the White House to a lonely army corner in the Pentagon, and treated like a naughty pupil given a dunce cap for behaving badly in the classroom. With no future left in the army, he states that he retired and took his pension.
The lawsuit was filed Feb. 9 in the Washington D.C. district court seeking unspecified damages.
As the key witness against the President, and his Commander-in Chief, the malleable Vindman provided his Trump-hating Democratic friends a full bucket of lies about a telephone conversation which President Trump had with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019, which Vindman monitored. In it, asserted Vindman, the President squeezed Zelensky like a grapefruit and “demanded” that his Ukrainian counterpart investigate the corrupt practices of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter–or else.
In a deposition and under oath before Congress, the uniformed Vindman, 46, provided the “or else.” He said Trump was ordering his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former U.S. Vice President Biden for his corrupt practices in his role as point man to Ukraine in the Obama administration, or else his country would be denied some $400 million in promised foreign aid.
Assigned inside the Trump White House, and with a top clearance, Vindman was serving as Director for European Affairs for the National Security Council, and in that capacity monitored presidential calls with Ukraine and other European officials. His allegations and testimony were key to the voting of articles of impeachment against President Trump by a partisan House of Representatives.
His allegations were shown to be fabrication when President Trump, to everyone’s surprise, released the actual transcript of the conversation, which showed no “demand” for an investigation. Also, President Zelensky stated publicly that his conversation with President Trump was pleasant and was without any intimidation….and that the subject of foreign aid was never discussed.
In the face of his outrageous conduct, Vindman was reassigned and escorted out of the White House. He stomped his feet in quest of a promotion to full colonel. Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth lobbied in his behalf for the promotion and its hefty increase in salary, but it never happened. In interviews, President Trump said that he considered Vindman a “disgrace to the military.”
In the lawsuit, Vindman charged that the defendants, primarily Rudy Giuliani, a popular, former New York mayor, and Donald Trump Jr., engaged in an “intentional concerted campaign of unlawful intimidation and retaliation against him for testifying before congress in 2019.
Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and ex staffers Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn “coordinated targets and talking points aimed at pushing false narratives about Vindman, including baseless claims that he was a Ukrainian spy and that he lied under oath.”
It caused severe and deeply personal ramifications for Lt. Col. Vindman, the suit alleged, with the soldier sustaining “significant financial, emotional, and reputational harm” for doing his duty and testifying against Mr. Trump at the impeachment trial.
Vindman was a native of the Ukraine and came to the United States with his parents when he was a child. He was a soldier for 21 years and had served a tour in Iraq where he was wounded in action and awarded a purple heart. He was putty in the hands of Schiff and Nadler and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and with credentials as a soldier and a purple heart recipient, he was their shining hope for the removal of President Trump from office.
In the face of the lawsuit, defendants reportedly will be preparing a motion to dismiss the litigation for its questionable basis and failure to state a legal cause of action. Final resolution might take years.
Bill Juneau worked for 25 years as a reporter and night city editor at the Chicago Tribune. Subsequently he became a partner in a law firm and also served as a village prosecutor and as a consultant to the Cook County Circuit Court and to the Cook County Medical Examiner. He is currently writing columns and the ‘Florida Bill‘ blog.
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