SCATHING

Impeachment Witness Vindman: U.S. Looks Increasingly Like ‘the Authoritarian Regime My Family Fled’

“At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment,” he wrote.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a witness in President Trump’s impeachment trial, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post that he harbored grave fears for the country’s future. “At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment,” he wrote in the piece published Saturday. Vindman, who was born in Ukraine, testified against Trump and later retired due to what he called “a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies.” He said that “the corruption of the Trump administration”—in particular Trump’s violent response to protesters and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic—has made the federal government “more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.” Nevertheless, he said, “I remain hopeful for the future for both my family and for our nation.”