Let’s Stop Pretending Every Impeachment Witness Is A Selfless Hero
It’s become clear that some witnesses in the impeachment probe have their own agenda, and not all of them are courageous martyrs for the truth.
The Federalist, Nov 18, 2019, John Daniel Davidson

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Then over the weekend we got a different perspective on Vindman. Transcripts of the closed-door testimony of Tim Morrison, former Russia and Europe director at the National Security Council, released Saturday by the House Intelligence Committee, reveal that Morrison had reservations about Vindman. He was concerned Vindman would “not exercise appropriate judgment as to whom he would say what,” and that when Morrison informed Vindman he wouldn’t be included in a trip to Ukraine, he made sure to have a witness in the room for that conversation.

Morrison further testified that Vindman was apparently concerned that not being included on the trip would make him less effective “because he would be seen by the interagency as not being relevant.”

In his closed-door testimony last month, Vindman had made reference to the “interagency consensus” about Ukraine policy—specifically, that the policies President Trump was pursuing through Rudy Giuliani, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, EU ambassador Gordon Sondland and others related to corruption in Ukraine ran counter to the “interagency consensus.”

But here we need to pause and ask whose policy priorities should count, the president’s or the career bureaucrats of the “interagency”? State Department diplomats and NSC experts serve at the pleasure of the president, not the other way around. What’s emerging in these hearings is an unmistakable attitude and ethos among career officials that their opinions and priorities about U.S. foreign policy should matter more than those of the president of the United States.


More: https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/18/let...-selfless-hero/