Earlier Friday, Trump said his impeachment by the House should be “expunged” because it was a “total political hoax.” Trump continued to target House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the only Republican who voted to convict him in the Senate trial that ended Wednesday with his acquittal.
The crux of the case against Trump was the allegation that he withheld military aid and a White House meeting to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president.
●With trial over, Trump returns to political maelstrom.
●Trump lambastes his critics as he moves to target perceived enemies over impeachment.
●Trump celebrates end of impeachment with angry, raw and vindictive 62-minute White House rant.
Schiff, Pelosi decry Trump’s ‘vindictiveness’
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee and lead impeachment manager in the Senate trial, accused Republicans of enabling Trump’s retaliatory conduct.
“These are the actions of a man who believes he is above the law — precisely the kind of conduct Congressional Republicans enabled,” Schiff said in a tweet.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised Vindman, recipient of a Purple Heart, as “an American patriot.” She also needled Trump, saying he “is impeached forever.”
“The shameful firing of Colonel Vindman was a clear and brazen act of retaliation that showcases the president’s fear of the truth,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The president’s vindictiveness is precisely what led Republican Senators to be accomplices to his cover-up. The firing of this patriotic soldier is a sad and shameless loss for America’s security.”
Feinstein says firings are ‘as clear a case of retribution’ as she’s seen in 27 years as a senator
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the firings of Sondland and Vindman were “nothing more than political revenge.”
“President Trump tonight fired two government officials who testified — under subpoena — during his impeachment trial,” Feinstein said. “This is as clear a case of retribution as I’ve seen during my 27 years in the Senate. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland should be celebrated for their courage to testify before Congress.”
She also criticized her Republican colleagues in the Senate for voting to acquit Trump.
“The Senate had a chance during the impeachment trial to send a message that no president is above the law,” she said. “Unfortunately, only one Republican had the bravery to stand up to the president and tell him to stop abusing the power of his office.”
Donald Trump Jr. thanks Schiff for letting his father know who to fire
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, took to Twitter on Friday night to thank House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) — suggesting the witnesses he called during the House impeachment proceedings helped identify the officials his father should fire.
“Allow me a moment to thank — and this may be a bit of a surprise — Adam Schiff,” Trump Jr. tweeted. “Were it not for his crack investigation skills, @realDonaldTrump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired. Thanks, Adam!”
He added a hashtag: “#FullOfSchiff”
Democrats make comparisons to ‘Saturday night massacre’
As it became clear that Trump was targeting witnesses who testified against him, Democrats started making comparisons to the “Saturday night massacre” during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, a reference to a series of high-level departures during the Watergate scandal.
“This is the Friday Night massacre,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) tweeted. “I’m sure Trump is fuming that he can’t fire Pelosi. We aren’t a dictatorship...yet.”
Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), meanwhile, offered a sarcastic take on what was taking place.
“Nothing says you’re innocent like taking revenge against every single person who testified against you,” he tweeted.
Trump fires a second witness in the impeachment inquiry
President Trump fired Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on Friday evening — the second time he dismissed a prominent witness in the impeachment inquiry in a matter of hours.
“I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Sondland said in a statement. “I am grateful to President Trump for having given me the opportunity to serve.”
That announcement came shortly after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was also subpoenaed to testify against Trump in the impeachment inquiry, and his twin brother were removed from their posts at the National Security Council.
Sondland’s testimony to the House was among the most damaging for Trump in the inquiry.
In his Nov. 20 appearance, Sondland explicitly linked Trump, Vice President Pence and other senior officials to what he characterized as a campaign to pressure Ukraine into investigating Trump’s political rivals in exchange for a White House meeting and nearly $400 million in military aid.
It added up, Sondland said, like “two plus two equals four.”
“I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo’?” Sondland said. “With regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
He said that “everyone was in the loop.”
Trump had once praised Sondland, who gave $1 million to the Trump’s presidential inaugural committee. He called the now-fired ambassador, “a really good man and great American.”
Trump calls Manchin a ‘puppet’ for the senator’s impeachment vote
President Trump, who continued to lash out at his political rivals in the days after his acquittal, took aim at one of the rare Democratic senators who has sided with the White House on tough votes in the past: Joe Manchin III (W.Va.).
Manchin, who Trump’s aides had identified as a possible Democratic opponent of impeachment, ultimately voted to convict the president. On Friday evening, Trump tweeted his displeasure.
“I was very surprised & disappointed that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted against me on the Democrat’s totally partisan Impeachment Hoax,” Trump wrote in a pair of posts.
“No President has done more for the great people of West Virginia than me (Pensions), and that will always continue,” Trump tweeted, an apparent nod to the president’s high level of support in the state, where he beat Hillary Clinton by 42 percentage points in 2016.
Manchin, however, was reelected in 2018, even after Trump went to his state several times, and told West Virginians that their senator was consistently voting against the president’s agenda.
In a statement explaining his impeachment vote, Manchin said it was “a truly difficult decision.”
“I take no pleasure in these votes, and am saddened this is the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren,” Manchin said. “I have always wanted this President, and every President to succeed, but I deeply love our country and must do what I think is best for the nation.”
Manchin has voted with the president more than 53 percent of the time, according to the website FiveThirtyEight — more than any other current Democratic senator.
But in his tweets, Trump sought to align him with more liberal Democratic leaders.
“I was told by many that Manchin was just a puppet for Schumer & Pelosi,” Trump wrote. “That’s all he is!”
Democrats denounce Vindman’s dismissal as ‘appalling,’ praise him as a ‘hero’
Democrats swiftly denounced Vindman’s dismissal Friday, criticizing what they saw as Trump’s purely punitive decision.
With Republican leaders initially silent on the move, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that Trump was acting from a position of weakness.
“As usual, the White House runs away from the truth,” Schumer said in a statement. “Lt. Col. Vindman lived up to his oath to protect and defend our Constitution. This action is not a sign of strength.”
Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said the removal was “just a disgraceful way to treat a man who has spent his life serving his country.”
Hillary Clinton quoted a passage of Vindman’s Nov. 19 testimony in the House impeachment probe, when the Army officer addressed his father.
“You made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth,” Vindman said then.
To that, Clinton added: “It’s appalling that this administration may prove him wrong.”
In a tweet, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said simply, “Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is a hero. @realDonaldTrump is a coward.”
Impeachment witness and his brother removed from their White House jobs
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council aide who testified against President Trump during the impeachment inquiry, has been removed from his White House job.
Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army, was also removed from the NSC, where he worked as a lawyer. On Friday afternoon, the two were escorted out of the White House, Alexander Vindman’s attorney said, dismissals that came as Trump continued to rage against the attempt to remove him from office.
“There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House,” David Pressman, Alexander Vindman’s lawyer, said in a statement. “LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.”
Pressman said Alexander Vindman will return to work at the Defense Department until he reports to the Army War College in July. Yevgeny Vindman, who also goes by Eugene, will return to the Army on Monday, but his assignment is unclear, said his lawyer, Michael Volkov.
Alexander Vindman, who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment hearings, had already informed senior officials at the NSC and the Army that he intended to leave his post by the end of February, months ahead of schedule, according to people familiar with his decision. It appears that wasn’t soon enough for the president, who was eager to make a symbol of the Army officer soon after the Senate acquitted him.
Leaving the White House on Friday for a speech in North Carolina, Trump was asked about Vindman and told reporters: “Well, I’m not happy with him. You think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m not.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his twin brother — right? — we had some people that — really amazing,” Trump said during a speech at the White House on Thursday in which Trump celebrated his acquittal by the Senate.
During his Nov. 19 testimony, Alexander Vindman, the NSC’s European affairs director, was careful to say he was not a political actor.
He said he considered the president’s demand of the Ukrainian leader “inappropriate,” because it could have “significant national security implications” for the United States.
He called the attacks on those who have appeared before lawmakers “reprehensible” and — addressing his father, who brought the Vindman family to the United States from the Soviet Union decades ago — said: “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”
Pressman cast the dismissal as vindictive and punitive, and blasted Trump’s decision.
“He did what any member of our military is charged with doing every day: He followed orders, he obeyed his oath, and he served his country, even when doing so was fraught with danger and personal peril,” Pressman said of his client. “And for that, the most powerful man in the world — buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit — has decided to exact revenge. LTC Alexander Vindman leaves the White House today. But we must not accept the departure of truth, duty, and loyalty that he represents.”
Trump wraps up remarks in North Carolina, saying ‘we win together’
Trump wrapped up his remarks in Charlotte, without returning to the subject of his House impeachment or Senate acquittal.
He ticked off a range of programs advanced by his administration, including opportunity zones and prison reform, that he said demonstrated its commitment to helping African Americans and others in disadvantaged communities.
“We’re one American family. We rise together, we thrive together, and we win together,” Trump said.
His remarks also included several references to the coming election, at one point prompting a chant of “four more years” from the crowd.
Trump jokingly suggested chants of “12 more years” or “16 more years.”
Trump refers to ‘impeachment hoax’ early in remarks at economic event
Trump brought up his impeachment and acquittal early in his remarks at an event in Charlotte focused on providing economic and job opportunities in low-income neighborhoods, as he introduced Republican members of Congress in the audience.
“These are warriors,” Trump said. “These people have been fighting hard. … You saw what happened. It was the impeachment hoax.”
Trump chided Democrats who pushed for impeachment.
“Now they have the failed impeachment hoax,” Trump said. “Every one of them has to put it right on their résumé.”
Collins uses Romney against his opponent in Georgia Senate race
Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) sought Friday to highlight political donations by Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) — whose seat he is now seeking — to a super PAC that supported Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) when he was the GOP presidential nominee.
In a new digital ad, Collins compares the more than $1 million that Loeffler, an Atlanta business executive, and her husband donated to the pro-Romney super PAC in 2012 to an absence of contributions to Trump’s campaign in 2016.
“The same Mitt Romney that voted impeach our president,” the ad says.
“Loeffler’s big money talks: but it was silent for Donald Trump,” Collins said in a tweet in which he shared the ad.
Collins is running against Loeffler in a special election in November.
Trump touts ruling in emoluments case
Shortly after landing in North Carolina, Trump touted a ruling by a federal appeals court in Washington that individual members of Congress cannot sue him to stop his private businesses from accepting payments from foreign governments.
“Another win just in. Nervous Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress sued me, thrown out,” Trump tweeted. “This one unanimous, in the D.C. Circuit. Witch Hunt!”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously dismissed a lawsuit filed by more than 200 Democrats in Congress seeking to enforce the Constitution’s anti-corruption emoluments provision.
Pelosi dismisses idea of expunging Trump’s impeachment by House
Pelosi on Friday dismissed a prospect being floated by Republicans of voting to “expunge” Trump’s impeachment if they take back the House next year.
“They can’t do that,” Pelosi said. “First of all they’re not getting the chamber back, but apart from that, there’s no expunging. If they don’t want to honor their oath of office, then they’re going to expunge from their own souls the violation of the Constitution that they made.”
Earlier Friday, Trump endorsed the GOP-backed idea, saying the House should expunge his impeachment because it was a “political hoax.”
The idea has gained traction among Republican lawmakers as Pelosi has repeatedly said Trump has been “impeached forever” despite his Senate acquittal.
Pelosi ‘stunned’ by reports that NSC staffer will be transferred
Pelosi told reporters Friday that she is “stunned” by reports that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staff member who testified during the House impeachment proceedings, will be transferred out of his White House post.
“Oh, my. Oh, my,” Pelosi said. “I’m stunned by it. Stunned. I’ll talk to my colleagues about this because I know they have some concern about the interventions that the president has with our military. That’s such a shame. What a patriotic person. This goes too far.”