Didn’t Vindman just get transferred back to the Pentagon? He was scheduled to go the War College. What about the 70 plus others that were hold overs from the Obama Administration in the foreign office? Also everyone leaving the White House after being released from their duties, I believe, would be escorted.
The credibility train left the station years ago.
The new thing we’re seeing now is the publicity. Republicans used to at least hide it when they were breaking laws. Now we have a Republican President who publicly brags about his plans to break the law.
Why should he bother hiding it when he commits a crime? The Republican majority in the Supreme Court has said he can’t be charged with a crime and the Republican majority in the Senate has said he can’t be impeached. And Trump has bragged about how his voter base wouldn’t care if he murdered somebody in public.
Robert O’Brian assures us all that the Vindmans were not fired, merely removed from their jobs months ahead of schedule. Nothing personal. Just getting rid of all of the career officials.
Gotta make sure we only have lackeys that know how to kiss ass on the National Security Council, right? Nothing personal.
The Vindman’s were not elected. They have only advisory position. They do NOT make Foreign policy.
Your point being?
John Kelly defends Vindman and implies Trump’s actions were illegal:
"During an event at Drew University in New Jersey, Kelly said Vindman, who was on Trump’s infamous call with Zelensky, was doing what he had been trained to do as a military officer when he reported Trump’s request that Zelensky investigate Joe Biden to a White House lawyer.
Kelly described Trump’s request as an “illegal order.”
“We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss,'” the former White House official said, according to the Atlantic."
And not surprisingly, Trump attacks Kelly in a tweet soon after.
Maybe you should tell that to Robert O’Brien:
‘We are not a banana republic’: National security adviser defends Vindman dismissals
Regarding this quote in particular, perhaps he could remind us which “banana republics” have had lieutenant colonels making policy (rather than, you know, the dictator).
Can the Vindman brothers sue? That could get interesting.
IINAL but no would be my answer.their jobs aren’t guaranteed. The military guy was just transferred back to the pentagon.
The President is the CIC , he’s their boss. He doesn’t have to ask them anything…actually I believe there is article about foreign policies in the Constitution.
Soldiers following the proper procedure for reporting illegal orders are not “making policy.”
He didn’t follow the chain of command. He did not report to his direct supervisor but gossiped with his brother and two others.
He admitted that at the hearing. He didn’t say gossiped…
At least you accept they were illegal orders.
This is entirely factually false. Here is the sequence of events:
None of these actions was improper in any sense. On the contrary, these were all the exactly-correct actions for a military officer who believes he has witnessed something that might be illegal by senior officials. He reported what he observed to his superiors, and honestly answered questions about it from Congress. There is not a hint of evidence that Vindman did anything inappropriate.
Nope I wasn’t.
Then why did you quibble about the reporting lines point? You can’t put the goalposts back and then pretend you hadn’t moved them in the first place.
The DoJ is dropping the case against McCabe.
I wonder if this is Barr’s way of telling Trump to shut his ass up. He (and Pence) might be one of the very few who’s in a position to tell Trump to shove it. The danger is that Trump doesn’t realize it and fires Barr in an escalating ego war, but if Trump does that, he’d end up with a temporary acting AG, which is what he had in Matt Whitaker.
The other story not getting as much notice is that Barr has also appointed a special prosecutor to re-examine the handling of the Flynn case. I expect this is an effort to appease DJT.
I think Barr is just warning the President to stop saying the quiet part out loud. It makes it hard for Barr to be an effective enforcer and fixer if Trump tells the world that he’s doing it explicitly on the orders of the President.