Alexander Vindman appeared in a 1985 Ken Burns documentary on the Statue of Liberty

Almost immediately after The New York Times teased Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's House impeachment testimony Monday night, President Trump's supporters on cable news began suggesting that the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert — a Jewish Ukrainian who emigrated from the Soviet Union at age 3 — had dual loyalties. By Tuesday mid-morning, that attack was floating like a lead balloon — most congressional Republicans declined to endorse the slur, some pointedly, and critics were pouncing.

Here's Nicole Wallace, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, for example:

Part of the reason even Trump-friendly impeachment critics declined to attack Vindman is that he is an Army combat veteran with a Purple Heart. And part of it is that Vindman and his twin brother, Yevgeny — who is also an Army lieutenant colonel who serves in Trump's National Security Council — are essentially avatars of the American Dream. In fact, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump unearthed Tuesday, the 10-year-old Vindman twins appeared in a 1985 Ken Burns documentary, Statue of Liberty, part of his America series.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Burns remembered.

If you watch the entire clip, the Vindman boys, sitting on a bench in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood, are the first in a series of immigrants explaining why they love America and its liberties. One of Trump's main policy pillars is skepticism of immigration — zero refugees will arrive in the U.S. in October, for example — but the Vindmans are Trump's type of immigrant, Bump argues.

"What Trump prioritizes in migrants who come to the United States is self-sufficiency and assimilation," Bump writes. "He prefers migrants from Europe over Africa or the Middle East. What he wants is Alexander Vindmans — until Alexander Vindman points out where the loyalties of Trump himself might be questionable."