Politics - News Analysis

Alexander Vindman’s Wife Accuses Trump of Endangering Their Family, ‘He Put Us in Danger!’

One of the most memorable moments in the hearings on Trump’ impeachment, indeed in the last decade, was that point when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman said that he told his father that he was going to tell the truth because in the United States, “the truth mattered,” and he surely would not be punished in the United States for telling the truth.

After all, this was a family from Ukraine, where telling the truth could get someone in trouble. They immigrated to the United States to live in a liberal democracy where things like this mattered. The Vindman’s thrived. Two brothers – twins – both joined the military to serve that country that they loved that much. Both so talented that they continued to rise in the military far beyond that rank at which even very talented people “washout,” (a lot of very very good officers never make Major, or Lt. Col. or Full Bird Col – as  Alexander was about to). Excellent people never make it that far. The Vindmans were just that good.

But telling the truth in the United States apparently did matter, just not the way that the Vindmans’ thought. According to the Intelligencer, Alexander Vindman’s wife was threatened by the Trump administration because why would it not be? This is a mob operation running under the veneer of government, of course, a witness against them would suffer the consequences:

She says, the weekend after Alexander gave closed-door testimony to House impeachment investigators in October. Rachel says it started with false stories being spread on Twitter claiming her husband — who emigrated from Ukraine as a child — denigrated the United States to Russian military officers. Then, she says, a raft of threats followed when the stories were amplified by Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter. “That’s when I started getting scared,” she recalls. Later that day, President Trump was asked about her husband and he said, “We’ll see, things are going to come out and we’ll see.” “That’s when I was really scared,” she says.

We have talked about “stochastic terrorism” lately. A term I learned just this last year, one in which Trump specializes. Above, is the perfect example: Stochastic terrorism is essentially publicly declaring someone to be awful, a terrible American, someone who deserves to be _____ (put something awful here), and then waits, until a lone wolf acts, or doesn’t act (that time), but there is no doubt who put the thought in people’s minds. At some point, someone acts. Terrorism complete.

“Other things said subsequently were more threatening and more overt, but the first time is the most shocking,” she says. Some threats were mailed to their home. “You know you’re easy to find,” she says. “These people found us, even if it’s one or two a day, that’s enough and doesn’t matter if [they’re] balanced by letters of support.”

That is the thing about stochastic terrorism, it only takes one, no matter how many hundreds are garbage, no matter how many thousands are just meant to scare. And it can happen with someone that’s never been a threat, just happens to be on the off the deep end that day and thinks he hears a message from a man he’ll follow through hell.

To the Vindmans, truth still does matter in this country. Just give us a few weeks to prove it. And thank you. It was just that America was made from immigrants from all over the world, unlike what Trump said, we got “the best Ukrainians,” the “best Mexicans,” “the best Japanese,” the best best best because it’s always easier to stay where one is and hope it gets better than it is to get up and say one is going to where it’s better.

And this is a fantastic anti-Trump ad featuring the Vindman family:

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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