White House sends out talking points to allies bashing impeachment witness Alexander Vindman

The White House has sent out talking points blasting an impeachment witness’s credibility, despite the fact that he still works for the Trump administration.

The missives slamming Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an adviser on the National Security Council, went out on Wednesday, the same day Vindman testified publicly in the House impeachment probe.

‘Vindman has major credibility issues,’ read one email to surrogates for President Donald Trump, according to Bloomberg.

‘Vindman has faced accusations of poor judgement, leaking, and going around normal procedures,’ the message continued, citing testimony from Tim Morrison, Vindman’s former NSC boss.

The White House also sent tweets slamming Vindman’s judgement, though he still works there

Morrison said that Vindman’s supervisors had ‘serious concerns about his judgment’ and suspected he might be leaking information to journalists. 

‘There were concerns that Vindman had improperly accessed information he wasn’t supposed to see,’ the White House message added.

At Wednesday’s hearings, Vindman addressed questions about his credibility by reading aloud from a performance evaluation saying that he is ‘brilliant’ and ‘exercises excellent judgment.’ 

Fiona Hill, a former NSC official, wrote the evaluation and will testify later this week in the impeachment inquiry. 

Another email blast from the White House to allies accused Vindman of arrogance and insubordination, according to the Daily Beast. 

‘There was nothing wrong with the call with Zelensky at all, Vindman was just upset that President Trump was leading foreign policy instead of sticking to Vindman’s talking points,’ that email reads. ‘But it’s not Vindman’s job to set foreign policy, it’s the President’s.’ 

Vindman at the Open Hearings on the Trump impeachment inquiry on Tuesday

The White House also published tweets questioning Vindman’s judgment, and derided him in an official newsletter.

‘Alexander Vindman—who testified for hours on national TV—has never met the President, said that he has no way of knowing what the President was thinking on Ukraine, and admitted that his testimony was based on nothing more than his own personal opinions and feelings,’ read Tuesday’s edition of 1600 Daily, the official White House newsletter. 

Testifying in the second week of televised impeachment hearings, Vindman steadfastly defended his patriotism, saying he had reported pressure by Trump for Ukraine to investigate potential 2020 rival Joe Biden ‘out of a sense of duty.’ 

However, Republicans in Congress took aim at Vindman during the hearing, suggesting the Kiev-born immigrant’s allegiance is not to the United States. 

The Republicans’ lead counsel asked at one point about an offer he got from a Ukrainian official to become the country’s defense minister.

Vindman acknowledged he had been offered the job three times, but said he dismissed the notion out of hand.