Former Chief of Staff John Kelly: Trump’s Ukraine Call Was an ‘Illegal Order’ that Col. Vindman Was Taught to Report

Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly seemingly unleashed on a number of news topics related to President Donald Trump during a 75 minute speech at Drew University Wednesday night, but his description of his former boss’s call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and defense of now-fired Col. Alexander Vindman are certain to get the most attention.

First reported by The Atlantic’s Peter Nicholas, Kelly’s most noteworthy comment was his apparent defense of Vindman for doing simply what he was taught to do by the military when he overheard Trump’s call, and that was “don’t follow an illegal order.” Not only does his defense of Vindman put him at odds with a number of Republican officials who have ridiculed Vindman’s service, but his referencing of what Trump has described as a “perfect call” as “illegal” is remarkable.

Nicholas writes:

Although Trump has long insisted that his call to Zelensky was “perfect,” Kelly made clear that Trump indeed conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s help digging up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

That amounted to a momentous change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine—one that Vindman was right to flag, because other federal agencies needed to know about the shift, Kelly said.

“Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against … the Russians,” Kelly said. “And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed. And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.”

When Vindman heard the president tell Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was tantamount to hearing “an illegal order,” Kelly said. “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’”

Kelly addressed many more topics that put him at odds with the current official White House position.

The former Chief of Staff and four-star general believes that he would have stopped Trump’s pardoning of Eddie Gallagher, who was acquitted of war crimes but convicted of lesser charges.  Kelly also made plain that he does not see the press as the “enemy of the people” as Trump so often claims, and suggested that Trump’s efforts to denuclearize North Korea will effectively be a waste of time, as Kim Jong-Un will almost certainly never give up his nuclear weapons.

Read the entire piece here.