National Security Advisor O’Brien Denies Vindmans Were ‘Retaliated Against’

White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien insisted that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother Eugene were not retaliated against.

At an event tonight, CBS News’ Margaret Brennan started off by asking about the National Security Council and the Vindmans’ departure last week.

.@FaceTheNation's @margbrennan's asks about the "right-sizing" of the @WHNSC and the role of political bias plays.

NSA Robert O’Brien cites budget and historic precedent as reasons for the decrease in personnel. pic.twitter.com/FLk82joF4e

— Atlantic Council (@AtlanticCouncil) February 12, 2020

O’Brien talked more broadly about restructuring the NSC before saying, “It was just time for them to go back. Their services were no longer needed.”

Brennan pressed him on the Vindmans being ousted. O’Brien said they weren’t fired and said people shouldn’t read anything into them being walked out:

“The President is entitled to staffers that want to execute his policy, that he has confidence in, and I think every president’s entitled to that. But there’s absolutely no retaliation with respect to the Vindmans as far as impeachment goes.”

He even went so far as to say, “We’re not a country where a group of lieutenant colonels can get together and dictate what the policy of the United States is. The policy of the United States is decided by an elected President of the United States. We’re not some banana republic where lieutenant colonels get together and decide what the policy is.”

“Is that what you’re suggesting happened?” Brennan asked.

“I’m just saying we’re not that country,” O’Brien responded.

As Brennan pushed him again, O’Brien insisted they “were not retaliated against.”

The Vindmand, of course, were escorted from White House grounds hours before the firing of Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who, like Lt. Col. Vindman, testified in the impeachment hearings.

And O’Brien’s remarks came hours after the president himself suggested the military could discipline Vindman.

You can watch part of the exchange between Brennan and O’Brien above.

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