Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who oversees Ukraine policy at the White House, is to appear before impeachment investigators Tuesday.
A senior White House official plans to tell House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he believed President Donald Trump undermined U.S. national security when he urged Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rivals, according to a copy of his opening statement obtained by POLITICO.
“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy, plans to tell lawmakers, referring to Trump’s efforts to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukrainian to investigate Joe Biden.
Vindman, who will become the first White House official to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry, also plans to testify that he reported Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky to the NSC’s top lawyer. It was the second time Vindman had raised concerns to the NSC’s counsel about the Trump administration’s posture toward Ukraine.
“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,” Vindman plans to say, referring to the energy company on whose board Biden’s son Hunter sits.
Vindman will become the first official who listened in on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky to speak to lawmakers.
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