(Jewish Group) Vindman, as retirement kicks in, decries Trump's 'efforts to undermine...democracy'

[Behind the Aegis]

Alexander Vindman, as retirement kicks in, decries Trump’s ‘efforts to undermine the very foundations of our democracy’

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was among the first to raise flags about President Donald Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate a political rival, embarked on his retirement by comparing the U.S. of today with the communist regime in Ukraine that his family fled four decades ago.

“At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this,” the Jewish National Security Council staffer wrote in an op-ed published Saturday in The Washington Post — the day that his retirement after 21 years of service in the U.S. military went into effect. “Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.”

Vindman, who came to the United States with his twin brother and father from Ukraine in 1979, decried what he called Trump’s “efforts to undermine the very foundations of our democracy.”

He said that even though he is retiring from the Army, he will continue to defend the United States, writing that “I will speak about the attacks on our national security.”

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