On Twitter this week, the anti-Trump conservative group known as The Lincoln Project went directly after Republican leaders for glossing over warnings from ret. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman about the conduct of the now former president, Donald Trump. In office, Trump tried to cajole Ukrainian leaders into launching investigative efforts that would be politically favorable to his political team in exchange for weapons that the Ukrainian government was hoping to obtain from the U.S. In a caption, The Lincoln Project said on Twitter that “2 years ago [Vindman] tried to tell you Republicans, but you wouldn’t listen,” and in the video, an on-screen message says that “when the dishonorable can destroy the honorable for telling the truth, what have we become?” Check out the video below:
2 years ago @AVindman tried to tell you Republicans, but you wouldn’t listen. pic.twitter.com/m4QUwGJTg6
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) February 28, 2022
The message contained in the video references retaliation that Vindman faced after testifying to Congress as part of the first impeachment proceedings against Trump; those proceedings centered on the pressure campaign that was angled to try and get the Ukrainian government to launch those investigations that Trump and his allies wanted. Vindman was fired from his role at the National Security Council, and his career within the military was meddled with by the White House, leading to his decision to retire from service. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) also recently reflected on Trump’s pressure on Ukraine; as Romney commented, “This was [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy — now a world hero, asking for weapons. And it was an American president slow-walking the provision of those weapons in order to have Zelenskyy carry out a political investigation on his foe. It was wrong. It was in violation of a president’s responsibility to defend our nation and defend the cause of freedom and resulted in his being impeached… [It] was an enormous error.”
There are a lot of Trump-backing politicians who just last week were saying you shouldn't care about Ukraine who are now trying to position themselves as the moral leadership on backing Ukraine.
Don't let them.
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) February 28, 2022
Vindman has singled out division that Trump and those on his side have fostered in the United States as helping Putin feel as though he has an opening for aggression. Last month, Vindman said that he has “every reason to believe that if we had not had an insurrection on January 6, because of President Trump, President Putin would not believe that there’s an opportunity, there’s a vulnerability in the United States. The hyper-polarization that Trump continues to nourish in the United States helps… [Putin] has major talking heads on Fox News, like Tucker Carlson, pandering to his interests, drawing false equivalencies between the U.S. and Russia. Really kind of fanboying over authoritarianism.”
America is rallying around democracy and standing with Ukraine. We roundly reject the Putin Bloc of Trump/Pompeo/Tucker.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 28, 2022
