Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Refugee Jewish Vet Testifying On Impeachment Has Loyalty Questioned On Fox, CNN

After reports emerged that National Security Council member Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was set to testify to Congress about his discomfort with President Trump’s Ukraine policy and actions, conservative commentators began implying that Vindman, a Jewish former refugee from Ukraine, was disloyal to the United States.

“Here we have a U.S. national security official, who is advising Ukraine while working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interests, and usually they spoke in English,” Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham said on Monday, referring to Vindman’s interactions with Ukrainian officials who asked him for advice on how to handle Trump. “Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on the story?”

“I find that astounding,” replied former George W. Bush administration official John Yoo. “And some people might call that espionage.”

Vindman was born in what was then the Soviet Union and came with his family to the United States in 1979, when he was four. “Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade cited his immigration history to say claim that Vindman “tends to feel simpatico with the Ukraine.”

“We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from,” former Republican Rep. Sean Duffy told CNN, adding, “He has an affinity, I think, for the Ukraine. He speaks Ukrainian. He came from the country and he wants to make sure they’re safe and free.” When asked by CNN host John Berman if he thought Vindman was looking out for America first, Duffy refused to say yes.

But not all conservatives were on board with that strategy. House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney, a staunch Trump supporter, said at a press conference on Tuesday that it was “shameful” to question Vindman’s patriotism.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.