Retired Army Col. Eugene Vindman, a key figure in former President Donald Trump\u2019s first impeachment, is running for an open seat in the House of Representatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vindman had been a senior ethics lawyer on the National Security Council (NSC) in July 2019 when his brother, fellow NSC official and retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, reported Trump\u2019s now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n
Eugene Vindman alluded to his role in the controversy in a Thursday campaign announcement: \u2018Soldiers are trained to run towards fire, no matter the personal cost. That\u2019s why I\u2019m running for Congress \u2013 to defend our nation against the clear and present danger of Donald Trump and the 147 Members of Congress who voted to overthrow the will of the American people.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I want America to remain the land of opportunity, a refuge for families like mine, where hard work makes a difference, truth prevails, rights are protected, and we are all free to be who we are and pursue our dreams,\u2019 he said in the statement.<\/p>\n
Eugene Vindman is running for Virginia\u2019s 7th Congressional District, which is being vacated by Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., as she prepares to run for governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Abigail Spanberger served our district with integrity and passion, and I hope to follow her example,\u2019 he said. \u2018Families are struggling to pay for gas, groceries and housing, while Republicans in Congress fight among themselves. They have no interest in governing. America\u2019s enemies relish in their dysfunction and the divisions they sow.\u2019<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the first Democrat to jump into the race, which is expected to be among the most closely watched House elections of the 2024 cycle. The district went to President Biden in 2020, but before that, Spanberger clinched it by unseating a Republican incumbent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eugene\u00a0Vindman launched his bid just as the former president is seeking to reclaim the White House for a second term.<\/p>\n
He said that he and his twin brother were key to kicking off Trump\u2019s impeachment over accusations of trying to get a foreign power to influence the 2020 election and obstructing Congress\u2019 subsequent probe into the matter.<\/p>\n
Alexander Vindman had testified during a 2019 congressional hearing about Trump\u2019s phone call with Zelenskyy, in which Trump pressed Zelenskyy to launch investigations into the Biden family\u2019s actions and business dealings in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Both brothers were dismissed from the NSC shortly after Trump was acquitted.<\/p>\n
A May 2022 report by the Pentagon\u2019s inspector general found that Eugene Vindman likely faced retaliation from his superiors after raising alarms about Trump with his brother.<\/p>\n\n
Retired Army Col. Eugene Vindman, a key figure in former President Donald Trump\u2019s first impeachment, is running for an open seat in the House of Representatives.\u00a0 Vindman had been a senior ethics lawyer on the National Security Council (NSC) in July 2019 when his brother, fellow NSC official and retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}