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In US, dual loyalty allegations against Jewish NSC staffer spark widespread ire

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Alexander Vindman, a refugee from Ukraine, testified before Congress that he felt Trump’s demand for an investigation into a political rival was improper

A number of pro-Trump media figures appeared to accuse a Jewish staffer on the United States National Security Council who expressed concerns during a Congressional hearing Tuesday regarding US President Donald Trump’s behavior of dual loyalty, drawing an immediate backlash.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq combat veteran, defied White House orders and testified to impeachment investigators that he twice raised concerns over the administration’s push to have Ukraine investigate Democrats including Joe Biden. He was the first official to testify who actually heard Trump’s July 25 call with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He reported his concerns to the NSC’s lead counsel, he said in his prepared remarks.

“I was concerned by the call,” Vindman said, according to his testimony obtained by The Associated Press. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the US government’s support of Ukraine.”

Vindman, who is Jewish and arrived in the US at the age of 3 from the former Soviet Union, said that it was his “sacred duty” to defend the United States.

US President Donald Trump (right) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speak during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. (Saul Loeb/AFP)

Some Trump allies, looking for ways to discredit Vindman, questioned the colonel’s loyalties because he was born in the region. But the line of attack was rejected by some Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney, who said it was “shameful” to criticize his patriotism.

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, called the broadsides against Vindman “absurd, disgusting and way off the mark. This is a decorated American soldier and he should be given the respect that his service to our country demands.”

During a evening broadcast of her show, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a stalwart supporter of the US president, said that “because Colonel Vindman emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with [former New York mayor and current presidential attorney] Mr. Giuliani, though they typically communicated in English.”

“Here we have a US national security official who is advising Ukraine, while working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest, and usually, they spoke in English. Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on this story?”

In response, her guest John Yoo replied “You know, some people might call that espionage.”

On “Fox and Friends,” which is said to be one of Trump’s favorite shows, co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed that Vindman had “an affinity toward the Ukrainian people.”

“We also know he was born in the Soviet Union, immigrated with his family, young. He tends to feel simpatico with the Ukraine.”

During an appearance on CNN, pro-Trump US representative turned commentator Sean Duffy stated that “it seems very clear that [Vindman] is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense. I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy.”

“We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from,” he said. “He has an affinity for the Ukraine.”

“I don’t know #AlexanderVindman. I do know his generation of Soviet Jewish refugees,” American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris tweeted in response to the allegations against Vindman.

“I worked w/ them for 3 yrs in Rome/Vienna—transit points for this mass exodus. As victims of communism & antisemitism, they despised Ukraine/USSR, revered [the United States]. To question loyalty is obscene.”

Former American ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro cited his own diplomatic service as proof that dual-loyalty claims are baseless.

“During the Obama Adm, I (a Jewish American) was Amb to Israel,” he tweeted. “We had an Indian-Amercian Amb to India, a Chinese-American Amb to China, a Korean-American Amb to S Korea, and more. No one questioned our loyalty to the US. I though we were past contemptible dual loyalty charges.”

Max Boot, a well-known Jewish conservative commentator who is highly critical of Trump, tweeted that the issue was “personal for me as a fellow Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union. Truly nauseating the depths to which Trump supporters will stoop.”

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman and one of the driving forces behind the Trump impeachment investigation, called the attacks on Vindman “pernicious,” stating that “the suggestion that because he’s of Ukrainian origin that he has some dual loyalty — this Purple Heart recipient deserved better than that scandalous attack.”

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-us-dual-loyalty-allegations-against-jewish-nsc-staffer-spark-widespread-ire/

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