rumitoid

Washington (AFP) - The White House's uniformed Ukraine expert was attacked online by his own employer. The acting US ambassador to Ukraine had his credibility aggressively questioned on live television by the president's allies.

And then those two key witnesses in President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, and others like them, went back to their jobs.

The scandal engulfing Trump has created an awkward and unprecedented predicament -- how diplomats and other national security professionals can carry on their work when their ultimate boss, the president, is assailing them.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman -- a National Security Council expert who said he had told his father, a Soviet refugee, that he had nothing to fear by telling the t***h -- remains in his position at the White House, whose official Twitter account quoted his superior as questioning his judgment.

With Vindman enduring social media taunts over his Ukrainian ancestry, the US Army said it was providing support to ensure that the Iraq War veteran is well protected.

Bill Taylor -- the acting US ambassador in Kiev, a post he also held a decade earlier -- painted a damning, if dispassionate, picture that supported the key charge that Trump was strong-arming Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on domestic rival Joe Biden.

Representative Jim Jordan, a staunch supporter of Trump, derisively said that he "can't believe" that Taylor was the Democrats' "star witness."

Taylor then returned to Ukraine, where he again served as the face of the United States.

- No interlocutor? -

He issued a statement hailing the release of three vessels seized a year earlier by Russia, saying: "I congratulate President Zelensky and his foreign policy team for their recent accomplishments."

The US ambassador to the European Union -- Trump donor Gordon Sondland -- similarly flew back to Brussels hours after he testified that Trump ordered a delay in a summit to press Zelensky to announce a probe.

A Washington-based foreign diplomat said the scandal had palpable effects on dealings with Ukraine, which is fighting Russian-backed separatists in its eastern region.

The diplomat said that there "really isn't an American interlocutor" on Ukraine after the resignation of envoy Kurt Volker and the public dressing-down of Taylor.

Jonathan Katz, a former State Department and USAID official who has worked on Ukraine, wondered how Kiev would know whom to trust, especially after witnesses said Trump put his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in charge of policy.

"It certainly undercuts their ability to carry out the national security duties in a way that they typically would be able to," Katz, now a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said of officials caught up in the scandal.

He said there was no precedent for the US president to go after career diplomats or civil servants, who are accustomed to bipartisan support.

"I am 100 percent certain that none of these people who have been testifying would think a year ago that they would be in this position," Katz said.

"When you feel like you're doing the best job you're doing for the United States and you have the president acting out of his own interests and not only undermining them but using political assassination, it has a deep impact on these people's careers and lives and families," he added.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uncomfortable-return-officials-assailed-trump-012553495.html

steve66613

Well, this certainly proves you can cut/paste crap!

eden

Cite which part of this is crap please.

Liberty Tree

Your TDS and h**e is really out of control.

rumitoid

Thank you.

rumitoid

Okay, I am getting tired of trying to be diplomatic. It is not h**e to speak out and stand against someone that is a continued threat to our way of life daily: as a patriot, which I assume you are, you should shine a light on it to protect our values and principles. Not to do so gets up their with s******n. YOU ARE OBLIGATED as an America citizen to speak t***h to power and reel in this reckless man threatening our Republic.

steve66613

Well sir.....here’s what the deal is with Vindman:

He’s a twit! He’s a treasonous partisan who thought he’d get a buddy (so-called whistle blower) over at FBI to send some schitt up the f**gpole (namely about a July 25th phone call) a create a big ol’ stink for the POTUS. Problem is: he didn’t plan on Pres. Trump publishing the phone call.

Vindman (“call me Lt. Colonel”) is such a narcissist (and clearly too stupid) to back out of testifying. Thus, he’ll have to wear this load of egg on his face.

Oh, for sure, we thank him for his service, but, he schitt in his mess kit!

steve66613

Furthermore: the rest of the ambassadors (who POTUS should have fired the day after inauguration) are partisans who erroneously believe that they set foreign policy. They tried to sling schitt, but, again, POTUS published the phone call.....case closed.

steve66613

What you’re doing is speaking opinion to power......your TDS blinds you to t***h, logic or common sense.

Tug484

Now he's skeered! Oh my gosh, a military man afraid.

Big Kahuna

Your delusions have finally gotten the best of you. Quit being a "patsey" and actually become a patriot who wants to protect our country from the demorat c*******t invasion and criminal ideology that wishes to abolish our Constitutional rights and Judeo/Christian values. Isn't the murder of 65 million babies in their mothers womb enough for you to come to your senses about the demonic demorat party?? When will your party end it's sexual perversion and push for a totalitarian state? When will it stop it's rape and pillage of other countries to put more and more money and resources like the corrupt Biden family is doing into their own pockets? When will the corrupt dems stop trying to steal and nullify 65 million v**es for President Trump? When will you chumps leave our great country and quit stopping all goodness, all higher morals, and all economic growth to go forward? Your party is anti-progressive and outdated. Get over yourselves.

Lonewolf

That was not a word for word record of that call and out says it right on the thing they call a transcript

Lonewolf

The republican party is the Putin party for the sake of appearance Putin let's Trump sit in the White House

Auntie Lulu

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

Vindman's identical twin brother can do the job, he's also a half-bird in the next cubicle.