Impeachment Talking Point from CBS Exposed as Fake News - Lt. Col. Vindman Not Fired
The impeachment inquiry by House Democrats against President Donald Trump hasn’t been going as well as the left probably intended.
That is making some of those who support the effort increasingly desperate to find something, anything, that can be used to successfully damage and smear the president.
It appeared over the weekend that CBS News had found something new to use against Trump — an allegation that Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman had been fired from the National Security Council in retaliation for his testimony before Congress — but it didn’t take long for that story to utterly collapse and be dismissed as fake news.
Indeed, the Washington Examiner reported that, according to Vindman’s own attorney, the career staffer remains on the NSC at this time and, as far as they now, will continue to serve in his current role until such time as his term expires in 2020.
The commotion — on both the left and the right — over Vindman’s alleged termination appeared to start following a tweet from the account of CBS’ “Face the Nation” program about an interview Sunday morning with new National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien in which Vindman was mentioned.
VINDMAN OUT AT NSC: After testifying on the Hill, NSA O’Brien says Alexander Vindman will be removed from the National Security Council. “Everyone who’s detailed at the NSC, people are going…back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks” https://t.co/DNsbuDqAwb pic.twitter.com/nQ9U5lvxrG
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 10, 2019
Apparently, people only read the tweet from “Face The Nation” — which declared “VINDMAN OUT AT NSC: After testifying on the Hill, NSA O’Brien says Alexander Vindman will be removed from the National Security Council.” — and didn’t actually listen to what O’Brien had to say in that interview.
When the topic of Ukraine and Vindman’s testimony came up in the discussion between O’Brien and host Margaret Brennan, the official was asked if Vindman would continue to serve on the NSC staff even after testifying “against” President Trump.
O’Brien noted that the NSC had become “bloated” under the Obama administration and the plan was to slowly whittle down the size of the group in the White House.
To that end, O’Brien said, “There are people that are detailed from different departments and agencies. My understanding is that Colonel Vindman is detailed from the Department of Defense. So everyone who’s detailed at the NSC, people are going to start going back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks. But we’re going to get that number down to around 100 people.”
Asked specifically if Vindman would simply “rotate out” or if there’d be “retaliation against him,” O’Brien replied, “I never retaliated against anyone.”
“There will be a point for everybody who’s detailed there — that their time, that their detail will come to an end,” he added. “And so we’re grateful that we can have these detailees come in, and they’ll come spend the year — a year or, you know, maybe a little bit more at the White House and then they’ll go back to their agency.”
In other words, “VINDMAN IS OUT” — as soon as his rotation at the NSC comes to its scheduled conclusion.
The Examiner reported that Vindman’s attorney, Michael Volker, said in a statement, “Vindman is still detailed to NSC. We are not aware of any changes in his status. Obviously any retaliatory action against LTC Vindman on a day when we honor our military heroes would be reprehensible.”
Volker stressed that his client “still has a job — his detail ends in July 2020.”
Further, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed in a statement that “He is still there,” in reference to Vindman serving at the NSC for the duration of his term.
All of the hyperventilating nonsense about Vindman being fired in retaliation for his testimony before Congress could have been avoided if folks on both sides had taken a few moments to look past the hyperbolic headlines and actually listen to what O’Brien had to say.
That appears to be too much to ask in this day and age, unfortunately.
Instead, we have once again seen the media rush off with yet another “we’ve got him now” story that was literally debunked before it even trended, just like so many others before it.
And that has really been the gist of the entire impeachment inquiry saga.
Report after report has been screamed aloud and then debunked, whether it be the alleged quid pro quos that were never clearly mentioned and one side wasn’t even aware of, the ridiculously inaccurate “whistleblower” complaint that started the whole thing, or the testimony from multiple officials that was supposedly damaging to Trump but actually reinforced his underlying messages.
Time after time, story after story, the Democrat-aligned media has set up hits against Trump only to see them knocked down almost instantly without causing any harm.
It’s just further proof that the left is becoming increasingly desperate in their quest to “get Trump” and are making critical mistakes due to that desperation.
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