WASHINGTON -- Defying White House orders, an Army officer serving with President Donald Trump's National Security Council testified to impeachment investigators Tuesday that he twice raised concerns over the administration's push to have Ukraine investigate Democrats and Joe Biden.
Alexander Vindman, a lieutenant colonel who served in Iraq and later as a diplomat, is the first official to testify who actually heard Trump's July 25 call with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He reported his concerns to the National Security Council's lead counsel, he said in his prepared remarks.
Separately, House Democrats unveiled a resolution Tuesday afternoon to set the parameters of the public phase of the impeachment inquiry. They plan to vote to formalize it Thursday.
Vindman, a 20-year military officer who was wounded in Iraq and awarded a Purple Heart, arrived at the Capitol on Tuesday wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals.
[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fWOPjZJyEA]
He told House investigators that the White House memo detailing the July call omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to restore them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony. The memo contained ellipses indicating dropped words, and Vindman's testimony aimed to fill in those blanks.
The omissions, Vindman said, included Trump's assertion that there were recordings of Biden discussing Ukraine corruption, and a mention by Zelenskiy of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Biden's son Hunter.
Vindman told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the White House memo to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.
Vindman said he "did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen," according to his prepared remarks.
The inquiry is looking into whether Trump asking Zelenskiy to investigate Democrats was a quid pro quo for military aid.
With the administration directing staff members not to appear, Vindman was the first current White House official to testify before the impeachment panels. He was issued a subpoena to appear.
Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to denounce the inquiry as a "sham," adding: "Why are people that I never even heard of testifying about the call. Just READ THE CALL TRANSCRIPT AND THE IMPEACHMENT HOAX IS OVER!"
Vindman, who arrived in the United States as a 3-year-old from the former Soviet Union, said it was his "sacred duty" to defend the United States.
Some Trump allies questioned the colonel's loyalties because he was born in the region.
Vindman "is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense," former Rep. Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin Republican and a Trump supporter, said in a CNN interview. "I don't know about his concern [for] American policy, but his main mission was to make sure the Ukraine got those weapons. I understand it: We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. Like me, I'm sure that Vindman has the same affinity."
But the line of attack was rejected by many Republicans, including Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.
Crawford said questions about Vindman's judgment are fair game. Attacks on his patriotism, on the other hand, are inappropriate.
"I think we should afford this officer a basic level of respect for having served as many years as he has served," Crawford, a U.S. Army veteran, said. "My question is not about his loyalty, but about his timing and his motivation."
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., isn't questioning Vindman's patriotism either, Boozman's spokesman, Patrick Creamer, said.
"He doesn't agree with that approach," Creamer said. "That's not a view that he would share. He hasn't heard any of his colleagues echo those comments. Only a few pundits."
REPUBLICAN DOUBTS
Vindman's testimony came the day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would vote on a resolution to set rules for public hearings and a possible vote on articles of impeachment.
[DOCUMENT: House resolution to advance impeachment inquiry » arkansasonline.com/1030resolution/]
Thursday's vote would be the first on the impeachment inquiry and aims to nullify complaints from Trump and his allies that the process is illegitimate and unfair.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he and other GOP lawmakers will review the resolution to see if it passes a "smell test" of fairness to Trump.
On the House side, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other GOP leaders also dismissed the significance of the planned vote, arguing that the process remains deeply flawed.
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle," McCarthy said. "Due process starts from the beginning."
Also Tuesday, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., said he is likely to vote "no" on the expected impeachment procedures resolution, becoming the first Democrat to come out against the measure.
"I would imagine that I'm going to vote no unless I see something really unusual," Van Drew said at the Capitol. "It's not that I'm friends with the president. It's not that I believe he should be protected. I don't mind if he's investigated. ... But what's going to happen in my mind, it's going to happen here in the House; it will go over to the Senate and then he will believe that he has been exonerated. He will still be the president, and he will still be the candidate -- a candidate who has been exonerated by the Senate."
Separately, Trump administration lawyers won a postponement of a court-ordered deadline of today for handing over a fuller version of former special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and its accompanying grand jury materials, which the House Judiciary Committee has sought since shortly after Mueller testified before Congress in July.
A U.S. appeals court in Washington granted the Justice Department's request for a delay while the government pursues a longer pause pending the outcome of an appeal of chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell's Friday ruling.
The Judiciary Committee opposed the Justice Department's request for a stay pending resolution of the appeal, calling the grand jury papers "essential to its urgent impeachment inquiry." But it told both the district and appeals courts that it would consent to a seven-day "administrative stay" allowing the court more time to consider the government's request for longer-term relief.
'OUTSIDE INFLUENCERS'
In his prepared remarks, Vindman testified that in the spring of this year he became aware of "outside influencers" promoting a "false narrative of Ukraine" that undermined U.S. efforts, a reference in particular to Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
He first reported his concerns after a July 10 meeting in which the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, stressed the importance of having Ukraine investigate the 2016 election as well as Burisma.
Vindman said he told Sondland that "his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the [National Security Council] was going to get involved in or push."
That differs from the account of Sondland, a wealthy businessman who donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and testified before the impeachment investigators that no one from the security council "ever expressed any concerns." Sondland also testified that he did not realize any connection between Biden and Burisma.
For the July call between Trump and Zelenskiy, Vindman said he listened in the Situation Room with colleagues from the security council and Vice President Mike Pence's office. He said he again reported his concerns to the National Security Council's lead counsel.
He wrote, "I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security."
Vindman served as the director for European affairs and a Ukraine expert under Fiona Hill, a former official who testified earlier in the impeachment probe. Hill worked for former national security adviser John Bolton.
"I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics," wrote Vindman.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Colleen Long, Zeke Miller, Padmananda Rama, Matthew Daly, Laurie Kellman, Eric Tucker, Alan Fram, Aamer Madhani and Robert Burns of The Associated Press; by John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz, Felicia Sonmez and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post; by Julian E. Barnes, Nicholas Fandos and Danny Hakim of The New York Times; by Andrew Harris of Bloomberg News; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 10/30/2019