Unfounded Attacks Show Limits of Trump’s Impeachment Defense

(Bloomberg) -- Within hours of new testimony damaging to Donald Trump by a previously unknown White House official on Monday, the president’s conservative allies had accused the witness -- a decorated lieutenant colonel in the Army -- of betraying his country.

The allegations against the official, Alexander Vindman, came without any substantiation. On Fox News, host Laura Ingraham accused him of “working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest.” A panelist on her show, former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, added: “Some people might call that espionage.”

On CNN, former Republican congressman Sean Duffy said Vindman’s Ukrainian heritage and language proficiency shows he “has an affinity for the Ukraine.”

“It seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense,” Duffy added. “I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy.”

The attacks on Vindman are part of a strategy by Trump’s allies that shows they recognize the damage the testimony has done to the president. Throughout the House impeachment inquiry, Trump loyalists have sought to discredit witnesses who’ve corroborated an anonymous whistle-blower’s allegations that the president sought to pressure Ukraine’s government to investigate his political rivals by withholding U.S. security aid and a White House meeting.

After the acting ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testified two weeks ago that Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani was directing a secret, parallel foreign policy in Ukraine that conflicted with U.S. national interests, the conservative website Breitbart published a story attempting to link Taylor to Democratic figures including Joe Biden and George Soros.

The allegations against Vindman and Taylor also show the limits of the president’s defense. Apart from a small group of loyalists in the House, most Republicans have steered clear of trying to offer a more benign explanation of Trump’s actions in Ukraine, instead focusing on criticism of the impeachment process in the House.

Trump himself has contributed to the campaign of public derision, labeling both Taylor and Vindman as “Never Trumper” Republicans who don’t support the president, people he’s called “human scum” on Twitter.

Giuliani joined the attack on Vindman, tweeting on Tuesday: “A US gov. employee who has reportedly been advising two gov’s? No wonder he is confused and feels pressure.”

Republican Discomfort

The Vindman allegations show that “Republicans are under a lot of stress when they are trying to defend the indefensible,” said Representative Val Demings, a Florida Democrat on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Some Republicans have rejected the approach, expressing discomfort and even outrage at attacks on impeachment witnesses.

Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House, denounced those on the right who are “questioning the patriotism, questioning the dedication to country of people like Mr. Vindman” and others who have testified in the impeachment inquiry.

“We need to show that we are better than that as a nation. Their patriotism, their love of country -- we’re talking about decorated veterans who have served this nation, who have put their lives on the line,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “It is shameful to question their patriotism.”

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a frequent Trump foil who has criticized the president’s conduct in Ukraine, called the Vindman accusations “absurd, disgusting and way off the mark.”

“This is a decorated American soldier and he should be given the respect that his service to our country demands,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Impeachment Vote

Trump appears increasingly likely to face an impeachment trial in the Senate. Responding to Republican criticism that the inquiry has been conducted largely out of public view, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Monday a vote this week on procedures to govern a second phase that will include public hearings. The vote, expected Thursday, will give lawmakers their first opportunity to put themselves on the record on whether the president should be held to account for his conduct in Ukraine.

The insinuations about Vindman, complete with anti-immigrant tropes, mirror a time-tested Trump strategy: create a counter-narrative in which his critics and government investigators are biased against him, part of a “deep state” cabal eager to end his presidency.

It worked during the Russia investigation, keeping Republican voters on his side and pressuring party lawmakers not to break with the president. Trump is similarly working to ensure that congressional Republicans stay in line on impeachment.

But he has expressed some frustration that Republicans aren’t more vocally arguing that his conduct in Ukraine isn’t impeachable.

“I’d rather go into the details of the case rather than process,” Trump told reporters on Monday before traveling to a fundraiser in Chicago. “I think you ought to look at the case. And the case is very simple, it’s quick.”

His version: the anonymous whistle-blower who first reported concerns about Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, “wrote a false narrative” of the conversation, and that the president never sought a “quid pro quo” for U.S. military aid to the country, which continues to battle Russia-backed separatists.

The problem with that account: the whistle-blower’s complaint has been largely corroborated by the White House memorandum of the phone call and testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, meanwhile confirmed in an Oct. 17 news conference that Trump sought investigations of his political rivals in exchange for a White House meeting with Zelenskiy -- a quid pro quo. “Get over it,” Mulvaney said, before later trying to walk-back his remarks.

Vindman’s Testimony

Vindman arrived Tuesday for his closed-door testimony to House impeachment investigators, where he was expected to describe his alarm after listening in on Trump’s July call with Zelenskiy. Vindman, who received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq, works at the White House as director of European affairs at the National Security Council.

In his prepared testimony, obtained Monday night, Vindman said that he twice reported concerns to an NSC lawyer about other Trump administration officials who he said were conditioning U.S. military aid to Ukraine on assurances that Zelenskiy would open investigations related to Biden, a front-runner to challenge Trump’s re-election in 2020.

Vindman said in his prepared remarks that he isn’t the whistle-blower and that he wouldn’t speculate as to the person’s identity. He added that he “did not think it was proper” for the president to insist that a foreign government conduct investigations into his political opponents, and that the effort was damaging to U.S. national security.

--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, Justin Blum

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