Trump ousts impeachment witnesses Sondland, Vindman

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump moved swiftly to exact retribution on those he blames for his impeachment, purging his administration of two witnesses who testified against him in the House inquiry just two days after his acquittal by the Senate.
Gordon Sondland announced he had been ousted as US ambassador to the European Union just hours after the White House dismissed Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC). Both offered damaging details about Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine.
Vindman was escorted from the White House, along with his twin brother, Yevgeny a senior lawyer and ethics official on the NSC, Alexander Vindman’s lawyer said. The lawyer, David Pressman, said Alexander Vindman “was asked to leave for telling the truth.”
“The truth has cost Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy,” Pressman said in a statement.
Hours later, Sondland announced that he too was no longer a member of the Trump administration.
“I was advised that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States ambassador to the European Union,” he said.
The removal of Sondland and the Vindmans — two days after Trump’s acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial — suggests that the White House is feeling emboldened to retaliate against people whom the president thinks betrayed him.
Sondland ultimately decided to leave his post, but departed amid intense pressure from officials at the White House and in the upper echelons of the State Department intent on purging people seen as disloyal, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump appeared to telegraph the moves earlier. Asked at the White House whether he wanted Alexander Vindman to leave, Trump said: “Well, I’m not happy with him.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said on Fox News that Trump believes he was treated “horribly” during impeachment and “maybe people should pay for that.”
Reaction to the abrupt departures came swiftly from Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that Vindman’s firing “was a clear and brazen act of retaliation that showcases the president’s fear of the truth. The president’s vindictiveness is precisely what led Republican senators to be accomplices to his cover-up.”
“The administration’s dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, his brother and US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is clear political retaliation, the likes of which is seen only in authoritarian countries around the world,” Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee New Jersey Democrat, said.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at his critics since his acquittal. He accused Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican who voted to convict, of using “religion as a crutch” in justifying his vote. Romney, a devout Mormon, cited his “promise before God to apply impartial justice” as he explained on the Senate floor why he decided Trump was guilty.
The president tweeted that he was “very surprised & disappointed” with Senator Joe Manchin’s vote to convict.