Alex Vindman’s Impeachment Testimony Completely Rested On His Personal Opinions

[Centristsin2010]

First Republicans whine that they can't hear testimony, though some CAN and choose not to show up....

Then they whine that the testimony is "nothing new"....

The frauds are a joke....you can't live with them, pass the beer nuts...

[JANMB]

jimc91  =   Yes there are PLENTY of   personal opinionated commentators
like   : John Lucas  who post articles that end up   rallying for Trump.  

What Trump and his minions were doing was an act of "extortion" withholding APPROVED funds if the Ukraine could come up with ANY negative information on the Bidens ....to help out Trump's campaign.    If Trump is a private citizen again so soon.... he'll be serving jail time ...for crimes he committed and cannot be charged for NOW..... . 
 

  Donald Trump is calling on China now    to probe former Vice President Joe Biden who is now a private citizen running for president.    HOWEVER,   the Constitution is a framework for all   laws that over time have written   to protect our democracy......... including laws that prohibits anyone from accepting money or any in-kind exchanges to help any candidate running for office.      These are derived from the emoluments clause and also from the section on treason as accepting campaign aid can extend to providing aid and comfort to a foreign nation.

[JANMB]

rker321 said  "When so many Americans have made the decision to denigrate, diminish and humiliate an American hero and a military hero I can see that this country has a greatest problem that I even thought.
I guess that now at this time nothing is sacred for the Trump followers, anything that is not what they want to see is wrong .
I am so very sorry for many of you. You are loosing your country. of what it has always been, and frankly, I don't think that you will ever become again what you have always been So very sorry. And hoping that I am wrong.
******************************************************************************************\
I  agree and  frankly I  never thought it would ever get this bad.     I'm not the only one who has to be confused by the entire change in American values  that has occurred since Trump started his campaign for president.   I never believed in the devil before and have to change my early convictions about that.    Some DEMONIC POSSESSION has taken over 35 %  of our country where they lost their moral compass.    I know that 9 out of 10 of our poorest states vote republican but it still doesn't explain how even the evangelicals became  desensitized in order to accept Trump  many character and moral flaws  to support such an awful excuse for a human being.  

[Panjandrum]

CriticalThinking:   This is more of Jim's non-stop attempt at distracting everyone from the facts of the case. Trump supporters love to focus upon the trivial aspects of the case. 

What they're doing is telling the world that they're just fine with what their chosen sleazebag did in trying to undermine the 2020 election. They have lost the right to ever again say they stand for things like the rule of law, honoring the military and all their other sanctimonious, fake virtues.

[rker321]

When so many  Americans  have made the decision to denigrate, diminish and humiliate an American hero and a military hero I can see that this country has a greatest problem that I even thought.
I guess that now  at this time nothing is sacred for the Trump followers, anything that is not what they want to see is wrong .
I am so very sorry for many of you. You are loosing your country.  of what it has always been, and frankly, I don't think that you will ever become again what you have always been So very sorry. And hoping that I am wrong.

[CriticalThinking]

This is more of Jim's non-stop attempt at distracting everyone from the facts of the case. Trump supporters love to focus upon the trivial aspects as opposed to the real essence of the attack upon our national security.

• We already know there's zero evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong or illegal.
• We already know that Rudy G., who is NOT a government employee, was dispatched to Ukraine by Trump.
• We already know why he was dispatched to Ukraine.
• We already know Trump overruled Congress and withheld the badly needed defense funds approved by Congress for Ukraine.
• We already know the Trump administration did not release the entire transcript of the phone call. They released only a summary of the call.
• We already know that Trump's so called concern about corruption in Ukraine is a total joke. Should anyone believe the most corrupt president of our lifetime is actually concerned about corruption in Ukraine?

[Panjandrum]

jimc91:   Alex Vindman’s testimony about the July 25 call between the two presidents does not add any new facts. So, what does he say? He offers his opinions about the wisdom of the call. That’s it.

Eyewitnesses to a crime don't always add new facts, what they do is confirm that they witnessed someone commit a crime. The right squawked loudly that the whistleblower only had secondhand knowledge, and now they're squawking louder about firsthand knowledge. 

[Richva]

Alex Vindman’s Impeachment testimony provides first hand observations of Trump committing impeachable acts against our great nation. It corroborates the information already presented. 

He also testified that the was  instructed by WH lawyer John Eisenberg not to tell anyone about it after he registered concerns with  Eisenberg. The lawyers then decided to move the record of the call into the NSC’s top-secret codeword system server normally used to store highly classified material that only a small group of officials can access.

Eisenberg’s purported request that Vindman keep the call a secret raises questions about whether the lawyer's intent was to bury the conversation altogether. It also undermines Trump’s insistence that the call was “perfect."

Lots of good reason to hear his testimony.  Why is the Trump administration so eager to prevent testimony?  Because they are guilty.

[jimc91]

Alex Vindman’s testimony about the July 25 call between the two presidents does not add any new facts. So, what does he say? He offers his opinions about the wisdom of the call. That’s it.

BY:  John Lucas

A lot of rhetoric is being thrown around, both in print media and on TV, about Lt. Col. Alex Vindman’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee about President Trump’s phone call with the president of Ukraine. He has been lauded by Democrats and the press (excuse the redundancy), and most of the commentary and reporting ignores any analysis of his allegations about the call.

In Vindman’s testimony, I see more appeals to emotion than to analysis and reason. For example, he talks about how he served in combat as an infantryman, holds a Purple Heart for wounds, and was an immigrant as a child. I therefore venture this analysis of his prepared statement and whether Vindman “has done nothing more or less than his duty,” as some have suggested, as well as the significance of his highly touted “personal knowledge” of that call.

Because committee Chairman Adam Schiff has kept Vindman’s oral testimony secret, I focus on Vindman’s prepared statement, which is public. I will also address only his testimony about the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky.

All About Vindman’s Opinions, Not the Facts

First, as discussed below, Vindman’s testimony about the July 25 call between the two presidents does not add any new facts. So, what does he say? He offers his opinions about the wisdom of the call. That’s it. His testimony about the substance of that call consists of five sentences at the end of his prepared testimony. Those five sentences basically comprise two opinions.

Here is what he said: “I was concerned by the call. [1] 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. [2] 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. This would all undermine U.S. national security. Following the call, I again reported my concerns to NSC’s lead counsel.”

The two portions preceded by my bracketed numbers are Vindman’s opinions. Let’s analyze what he said. It is important to remember that he was not speaking off-the-cuff or just responding to questions. This was a carefully prepared opening statement that had been closely vetted by lawyers and others.

Regarding his first opinion, he says, “I did not think it was proper…” That is pure opinion, not fact. Moreover, if it is improper to ask a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen, that would no doubt come as a big surprise to many in government.

Vindman’s statement is, in short, an unfounded and unsupported opinion. And the notion that the president could not properly ask a foreign country to investigate a U.S. citizen who may have engaged in illegal activity is nonsense; Joe Biden does not get a pass from investigation just because he is candidate for the nomination of his party.

There is nothing improper or illegal about an investigation into potentially illegal actions, much less anything that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor. The notion that it does is so much tommyrot.

So, absent personal knowledge of a high crime or misdemeanor, Vindman’s first personal opinion is immaterial. I think most voters not swirling around in the vortex of Trump hatred care more about the opinions of the president and the secretary of State than those of a mid-level officer, at least on this topic.

Vindman’s second opinion is that if Ukraine investigated the Bidens as President Trump suggested, it would lose the support of Democrats in Congress. That may well be, but in addition to being a personal opinion, it is a pure political concern. It is properly the concern of the presidents of the United States and of Ukraine.

If he disagrees with the president’s approach and harbors a fear that Ukraine will lose Democrat votes if it investigates the Bidens, Vindman’s proper role is to give his best advice and then shut up. His proper role is not to volunteer to go before a congressional committee and complain about why he disagrees with the president.

It’s Not This Guy’s Duty to Second-Guess the President

So, with the understanding that Vindeman’s relevant statements were opinion, not fact, was he merely doing his duty as his officer’s oath demands? Many have relied on the argument that he is not an anti-Trump activist because he was subpoenaed and therefore had no choice but to testify. Thus, his supporters have argued that he did not decide to become involved but was merely a pawn in the political theater, just a honorable soldier doing his duty.

That would be a better argument if Vindman had been subpoenaed involuntarily and then had to give honest answers to factual questions. But that is not what happened. He said he was “appearing today voluntarily pursuant to a subpoena.” Appearing “voluntarily pursuant to a subpoena” is what people do when they are trying to cover their rear end. That is a statement by someone who is willing or affirmatively wants to testify but thinks he needs a subpoena commanding his presence to be able to claim that he had to testify.

Lawyers deal with that every day. The “just doing his duty” argument also is flawed because even if his duty required him to testify about facts (itself a debatable proposition) it did not require him to offer his personal opinions critiquing his commander-in-chief.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, being subpoenaed does not obligate any witness to make an opening statement. That is something they do if they want to. Vindman wanted to; it was a purely voluntary act. That desire to offer his personal opinions to impeach the president’s decisions does indeed support the argument that this officer is an active member of the “resistance.”

We All Have the Same Firsthand Knowledge Now

Second, many have touted Vindman’s “firsthand knowledge” of what was said on the July 25 call, in order to distinguish that “firsthand knowledge” from the allegations by the “whistleblower,” whose “second- or third-hand knowledge” was the catalyst for the present impeachment circus. The anti-Trump media initially ran with that story line and others have fallen into the same trap.

Vindman’s public volunteering of his personal opinions contrary to those of his commander-in-chief violates the fundamental rule that military officers should be publicly apolitical.

It is correct that Vindman has “firsthand knowledge” of the call. However, his personal knowledge of that call is not important. Why not? Because the president released the transcript and we know what was said.

In fact, Vindman’s prepared statement indicates he believes that the released transcript is accurate. He said: “As the transcript is in the public record, we are all aware of what was said.” If Vindman had contended that the transcript was not accurate, then his recollection might be material. But that is not what he claimed.

Although some left-leaning media outlets now claim the transcript has omissions and is not accurate, Vindman did not make that claim or dispute the accuracy of the transcript. If he later changes course and claims, contrary to his prepared statement, that the transcript is not accurate, then such a shift would raise obvious credibility issues. But that discussion is for another day, if it happens.

I will close with one final observation: Vindman’s public volunteering of his personal opinions contrary to those of his commander-in-chief violates the fundamental rule that military officers should be publicly apolitical, in order to keep the armed forces out of political disputes. I respectfully submit that honoring that fundamental separation is more in line with an officer’s duty than what Vindman did in this case.

The fact that he elected to testify in uniform, thus attempting to add the imprimatur of the U.S. military to boost his credibility, makes it worse.