Something does not pass the smell test…

Why would Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a decorated combat military officer at the National Security Council who was tasked to serve at the White House, become “visibly shaken” when listening to a rather innocuous telephone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky?

There is nothing in either the first benign Trump-Zelensky conversation nor the more troubling second conversation that would scare any normal listener much less a combat veteran.

Unless you may have “guilty knowledge” of troubling events which occurred on your watch or in which you participated – and the part of the message that apparently left Vindman shaken was a potential request to investigate those affairs which he may have assumed were buried in the sands of bureaucratic time?

Could it be that Vindman, who served the previous Obama Administration, knows something about how highly-ranked U.S. officials participated in Ukraine or Russian activities to the extent of generating millions of dollars paid to the Clinton foundation or resulted in the Russians or the Ukrainians assisting the Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee with information helpful in interfering with the Trump candidacy and the early stages of the Trump presidency? Perhaps the Biden/Burisma matter was only part of the transaction and there was more to discover? Or perhaps some individuals were about to be exposed for transferring classified U.S. intelligence to foreign agents?

Assuming Lt. Colonel Vindman was an honorable man, a competent soldier, and intelligence analyst, what is it that left him “visibly shaken?”

Something we did not know…

It appears that there was a revelation in Vindman’s sworn testimony before Representative Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee. Vindman testified that the Ukrainian government asked Vindman to serve as the Ukrainian Defense Minister at least three times. He laughed it off as being comical and claimed he reported the offer to his superiors.

Considering Vindman did not have combat leadership experience, experience in military strategy, and would no longer be able to access sources of U.S. intelligence, why would Ukraine make the offer? 

It is also likely that Lt. Col. Vindman perjured himself when he previously testified under oath he did not know who the whistleblower is, and the refused to name the unnamed intelligence analyst he leaked the July 25 call to -- and his attorney jumped in and said he wouldn't name the whistleblower. Whoops!

And then there is the matter of National Security Council official Tim Morrison …

Morrison was the Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council at the time of the relevant events and has since resigned after his first closed-door testimony before Congress.

Clearly, Morrison is no fan of Vindman and has intimated on numerous occasions that he did not fully trust Vindman, suspected that he may have received unofficial information from others, and inappropriately shared the information (aka leaked) with unknown third parties. Pretty much why many believe that Vindman, who worked for both former Vice President Biden and CIA Director John Brennan, was removed from the White House detail and resumed his duties at the CIA.

When “the minority questioned whether Morrison knew that Vindman, who served directly under him, had gone separately to legal counsel after the call— Morrison said he did not.”

“When asked about why he did not include Vindman in certain meetings, Morrison said he was trying to protect his team from what he thought would become a ‘partisan political issue.’”

“The minority also inquired into which other departments Vindman may have spoken to about the July 25 call. Schiff intervened, concerned that these questions were intended to identify and out the whistleblower. Morrison’s counsel instructed him not to answer those questions, which he argued were well beyond the scope of his deposition testimony.”

“Morrison said that he and Taylor did not think the Ukrainians knew about the hold on funds, and noted that the president is generally skeptical of aid. In response to minority questioning as to whether, in giving aid, Trump might also expect to see European allies ‘also step up their aid contribution,’  Morrison said that the president would hope for a European country to be ‘more supported by Europeans.’ He also said that, to the best of his knowledge, there was no process undertaken to “reprogram” the aid originally promised—a prerequisite to a formal rescission. Minority questioning indicated that this diverged from Vindman’s testimony, given that Vindman stated the Ukrainians were asking him about a hold on funds. Morrison responded that Vindman never escalated these calls and this information up the chain of command and so Morrison was not aware of them.”

Perhaps the mainstream media has been helpful …

(1) It appears that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee had contacts with foreign Russian and Ukrainian sources – and went to some lengths to disguise these contacts by using the law firm of Perkins Coie to launder campaign funds to pay Fusion GPS which had direct contact with Russian and Ukrainian sources. From the activities of former British MI-6 spy Christopher Steele, we know this information to be true.

(2)  From published articles … 

Politico: January 11, 2017 -- Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire: Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Politico: August 8, 2017 -- Ukrainian MP seeks probe of Ukraine-Clinton ties: Parliament member demands to know whether his country's government targeted Trump in the 2016 campaign.

A Ukrainian member of parliament has requested a criminal investigation into possible meddling by his country’s government into last year’s U.S. presidential elections, claiming the interference has “seriously damaged Ukrainian-American relations.”

In a July 24 letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andrei Derkach, an independent MP who was formerly aligned with a pro-Russian party, requested that authorities launch a pretrial investigation into “illegal interference in the election of President of the United States organized by a criminal organization.” This organization, he said, consisted of senior members of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, government officials, and other public figures.

Vox: October 12, 2019 --The former ambassador to Ukraine says she was ousted because of her anti-corruption work

[Ambassador Marie] Yovanovitch was recalled from Ukraine in May, allegedly at the request of the president’s allies, including his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The opening statement of her closed-door testimony was obtained by the press; in it, Yovanovitch echoed this claim, asserting that she had been removed from office because of a “concerted campaign against me,” which she said had been led by Giuliani and supported by Trump.

An outspoken critic of corruption in that country, Yovanovitch testified that she had learned from Ukrainian officials that Giuliani had been smearing her among her colleagues and associates, telling them that she had spoken ill of the president.

Yovanovitch denied these claims but suggested that Giuliani may have taken on this campaign because he and his associates stood to benefit financially if the US halted its anti-corruption work in the region. Yovanovitch had worked to strengthen the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which launched in 2014.

(3)  All of these activities occurred on Lt. Col. Vindman’s watch.

Bottom line…

Beyond the arrogance that he, Lt. Col. Vindman, could set U.S./Ukrainian foreign policy better than the President of the United States, what is it that spooked Vindman and initiated the so-called “whistleblower’s complaint.” It is now more important than ever to interrogate the whistleblower to determine the extent of his contacts with Vindman, other current and former members of the NSC, the House Intelligence Committee, and other parties involved in Russian or Ukrainian affairs.

The entire kerfuffle is about whether or not a request for a favor to investigate corruption that may have impacted U.S. relations is improper.

"It was inappropriate, it was improper for the president to request, to demand an investigation into a political opponent,’ Vindman told the House Intelligence Committee.”

Who is this piss-ant to question the prerogatives of the President of the United States and Vindman’s Commander-in-Chief?

Vindman isn’t a whistleblower, he is an insubordinate partisan hack who was protecting his Obama-era bedfellows. I believe he should be investigated and held responsible for his apparently politically-motivated actions.

No wonder the so-called impeachment inquiry was moved from the open testimony in the Judiciary Committee to the secret testimony in the Intelligence Committee. And reason enough for Chairman Adam Schiff to ride roughshod over both witnesses and minority committee members to the extent that it may appear to be an abuse of power, witness tampering, and subornation of perjury.

IF AMERICANS CAN READ THE ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT FOR THEMSELVES AND ALL THE TESTIMONY IS HEARSAY, SPECULATION, AND ABOUT FEELINGS, WHY IS THIS SCHIFF SHOW CONTINUING?  WHERE IS THE WHISTLEBLOWER? DEMOCRATS!

We are so screwed.

-- steve