'Head On A Pike' Phase Has Begun

President Trump and his aides wasted little time opening a campaign of retribution against those he blames for his impeachment, firing on Friday two of the most prominent witnesses in the inquiry against him barely 48 hours after the Senate acquitted the president.

Emboldened by his victory and determined to strike back, Mr. Trump fired Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, within hours of the White House dismissing Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran who was a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council. Both officials testified to a House committee about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to help him against his domestic political rivals.

“I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Mr. Sondland said in a statement just hours after Colonel Vindman’s dismissal. He expressed gratitude to Mr. Trump “for having given me the opportunity to serve.”

Colonel Vindman was escorted out of the White House by security officers on Friday afternoon and told that his services were no longer needed. His twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who also worked on the N.S.C. staff, was fired too and escorted out at the same time. Both will be sent back to the Defense Department.

“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,” David Pressman, Alexander Vindman’s lawyer, said in a statement. “Lt. Col. Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.”

Colonel Vindman spoke publicly only once, when ordered to under subpoena, Mr. Pressman added. “And for that, the most powerful man in the world — buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit — has decided to exact revenge.”

Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian immigrant who earned a Purple Heart after being injured while serving in Iraq, told the House Intelligence Committee that he was surprised to hear Mr. Trump pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats during a July 25 telephone call. He told lawmakers that he reported his concerns to other N.S.C. officials.

Mr. Trump has made clear his personal antipathy for Colonel Vindman. “Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his twin brother, right?” the president said at one point during a rambling hourlong venting session at the White House on Thursday, his voice dripping with disdain. “We had some people that — really amazing.”

On Friday morning, the president reposted a Twitter message from a supporter advocating the colonel’s dismissal: “Vindman’s behavior is a scandal. He should be removed from the @RealDonaldTrump White House ASAP to protect our foreign policy from his machinations.”

Ms. Pelosi said she was “stunned” by Colonel Vindman’s dismissal. “That’s such a shame,” she told reporters. “What a patriotic person. This goes too far.”

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who voted to acquit but expressed hope that Mr. Trump would learn a lesson from the impeachment, said that witnesses should not be punished for giving the House required testimony. “I obviously am not in favor of any kind of retribution against anyone who came forward with evidence,” she said in Maine, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Even before the hearing, Colonel Vindman was subjected to virulent attacks on his patriotism on Fox News and social media that caused concern for his personal safety. Mr. Trump called him a “Never Trumper,” a term the colonel rejected. Fox aired a segment in which commentators noted that Colonel Vindman was an immigrant “working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest,” suggesting that might amount to “espionage.”

The attacks resumed during the Senate trial. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, wrote on Twitter that Colonel Vindman was no patriot. “How patriotic is it to bad-mouth and ridicule our great nation in front of Russia, America’s greatest enemy?” she asked.

Colonel Vindman’s lawyer fired back at what he called the senator’s “slander” and “cowardice,” saying his client would continue to “serve our country dutifully and with honor.”

In recent weeks, Colonel Vindman was still doing his day-to-day job of coordinating Ukraine policy with career officials at other agencies, but had been largely cut off from political appointees and had not yet met the new national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, who has been in the job since September.

His twin brother, Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, was also escorted off White House grounds at the same time and apparently dismissed from his post at the National Security Council. David Pressman, an attorney for Alexander Vindman, said in a statement to HuffPost that Yevgeny Vindman was escorted from the White House “suddenly and with no explanation, despite over two decades of loyal service to this country.”

“He is deeply disappointed that he will not be able to continue his service at the White House,” Pressman added.

Then Trump had the Treasury Department hand over highly confidential information in response to a November request from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for suspicious activity reports filed with the department by financial institutions.  

Last year, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin blocked a Democratic request for the president’s tax filings, saying Democrats had no legitimate legislative purpose for seeking the documents. 

“The legal implications of this request could affect protections for all Americans against politically-motivated disclosures of personal tax information, regardless of which party is in power,” Mnuchin said in an April 2019 letter.   

Apparently, that same standard did not apply when it came to non-tax financial information that may pertain to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a Trump political rival. 

“The administration told House Democrats to go pound sand when their oversight authority was mandatory while voluntarily cooperating with the Senate Republicans’ sideshow at lightning speed,” Ashley Schapitl, a spokeswoman for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the highest-ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, said in a statement. 

Senate Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden as part of an inquiry designed to bolster Trump’s unfounded claim that Joe Biden used the vice presidency to benefit his son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was involved in setting U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe. 

Democrats based their request for Trump’s tax records on a federal tax disclosure law granting congressional committees access to private tax information by request. Mnuchin and the Justice Department claimed that Democrats only wanted to embarrass the president, so they refused to comply. Now the request is tied up in court. 

It’s hypocritical for the Treasury Department to stonewall Democrats’ request while granting Republicans access to material on Hunter Biden, said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. He said it’s hard to see what legislative purpose Republicans are after with regard to Hunter Biden. 

“For [Treasury] to go willy-nilly handing out financial information of private citizens… is simply outrageous,” Rosenthal said. 

A spokesman for Grassley wouldn’t say if the Finance Committee is also seeking Biden’s tax returns. The committee generally doesn’t disclose whether it has sought someone’s private tax information; Grassley has used the tax disclosure law to obtain the returns of tax-exempt organizations, such as nonprofit hospitals, and to investigate ACORN, an organization that registered low-income voters, who tend to be Democrats.