When a reassignment from a post is worse than incarceration your outrage is impotent.
With the announcement that Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman was going to be removed from his position on the White House Security Council there has been all manner of disgust and contempt from Democrat leaders, as well as their serfs in the press. The outrage voice calls out all the expected talking points about President Trump acting in a vindictive fashion over the ‘’brave’’ actions of a supposed ‘’hero’’. Heads on a pike type condemnation has been commonplace.
Nancy Pelosi has of course been leading this brigade of bemoaning bellyachers in this charge of unaccountable retribution by the president.
The curiosity here is twofold. The first aspect to look at is what these carping scolds are willing to overlook to deliver their impotent outrage. Vindman is an employee of the president. He not only was shown to be working against his interests but his superior routinely complained of his lack of adherence to protocol, going so far as to cut out Vindman from particular discussions out of fear of his ensuing actions. Vindman was suspected to be a source of leaks.
He confirmed this in his own testimony, when he acknowledged speaking about details of the controversial phone call to others beyond his chain of command. He admitted to talking to a person in the intel community, and when he was told not to reveal that person’s name it confirmed Vindman as the source of the whistleblower. All of these actions are not only dismissable acts but chargeable illegalities.
But how dare the president punish and fire such an individual, say the leftist authorities. However the claims of this being an example of precedent-setting vindictiveness are ignoring one hardcore truth; they are excusing away, or are oblivious of, the retribution we saw take place with Barack Obama.
This is not a case of whataboutism, because the lack of contempt for far worse actions from the prior administration exposes the canard they are trying to sell today. If Trump firing someone (more accurately, reassigning them) is so unacceptable how does this measure up to President Obama tracking down and arresting those guilty of similar acts?
At the behest of Obama, Eric holder went on a regular quest to root out and identify those who were leaking sensitive and/or classified information. For their effort the Obama administration relied upon The Espionage Act, using that statute to go after those who were leaking intel to the press. Prior to their reliance on this legislation the amount of people jailed due to EA enforcement was exactly one.
Obama arrested numerous people with this rarely employed tactic. He even voiced his intentions — ”Since I’ve been in office, my attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks and speculation.’’ Numerous individuals saw themselves incarcerated, and even General David Petraeus and General James Cartwright became prosecuted under this statute before they pled to lesser charges.
But today we are supposed to be outraged that Trump has excused one individual whom it can be argued acted in seditious fashion. A court martial would not be a shocking result…unless you are a Democrat or mainstream journalist.