This week, President Donald Trump kickstarted a campaign of retribution against witnesses in his impeachment proceedings, and like a loyal shill, Donald Trump Jr. promptly fell in line. The president fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from his role on the National Security Council — and Trump’s own past bigtime donor Gordon Sondland from his role as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union — and Trump Jr. mockingly insisted on Twitter that House Intel Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was to blame for the dismissals. It’s another gross example of how embedded in their ego that the Trumps really are.
Trump Jr. tweeted:
‘Allow me a moment to thank—and this may be a bit of a surprise—Adam Schiff. Were it not for his crack investigation skills, @realDonaldTrump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired. Thanks, Adam! #FullOfSchiff’
Allow me a moment to thank—and this may be a bit of a surprise—Adam Schiff. Were it not for his crack investigation skills, @realDonaldTrump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired. Thanks, Adam! 🤣 #FullOfSchiff
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 8, 2020
The president claimed that Vindman engaged in insubordination — although in reality, he simply dared to reveal his firsthand perspective about Trump’s plot to bribe Ukraine into investigating his opponents. Vindman himself was listening into Trump’s infamous July 2019 phone conversation with the Ukrainian president when Trump personally advocated for investigations into his opponents, and he worked to bring attention to the scheming and faced demands from political appointees to keep quiet. That silencing what Trump Jr. and the rest of the president’s supporters are cheering — not some kind of valiant win for America.
Besides — if the firing really wasn’t about political retribution, then why was Vindman’s brother fired from his own White House job as well?
The lieutenant colonel’s attorney David Pressman commented:
‘There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House. LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.’
That group of frightened powerful includes Senate Republicans, who voted down a proposal to include witnesses in the president’s recently concluded Senate impeachment trial.
Check out Twitter’s response to Trump Jr…
