Lindsey Graham approves of Vindman's dismissal, doesn't trust he had no political agenda

Lindsey Graham and Margaret Brennan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has no issue with President Trump's decision to reassign Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council.

Vindman complied with a congressional subpoena and provided damaging testimony against Trump during the House's impeachment inquiry last year. After Trump was acquitted in a Senate trial, the White House dismissed Vindman from his post in what many consider an attempt to exact revenge. Graham is not among them. During Sunday's edition of Face the Nation on CBS, he said he respects Vindman's military service, but he said he's learned over the last two years that the State Department, Justice Department, and U.S. intelligence agencies have a political agenda and take the "law into their hands" since Trump took office, which he aims to put a stop to.

Graham said people in Vindman's chain of command were "suspicious" of his "political point of view," arguing it's possible he may have been the one to leak the contents of Trump's now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment saga. Host Margaret Brennan countered by saying National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien had previously told her he was "confident" no leaks came from within the council.

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"Well, I am not," Graham said, bluntly. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.