Radio Recap – Schiff Star Witness: Ukraine Offered Me Minister of Defense Job

By 

Jay Sekulow

|
November 19, 2019

3 min read

Public Policy

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The star witness for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff during today’s hearing said that he was offered the position of Ukraine Minister of Defense three times.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live we discussed today’s impeachment inquiry hearings and the fact that National Security Council official Lt. Col. Vindman testified that he was offered the position of Minister of Defense by the Ukraine government.

This falls into the “you can’t make this up” category.

This was the exchange between Steve Castor, the Counsel for the Minority on the House Intelligence Committee, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman:

CASTOR  -- You went to Ukraine for the Inauguration?
VINDMAN -- correct.
CASTOR -- At any point during that trip, did Mr. Dannyluk offer you a position of Defense Minister with the Ukrainian government?
VINDMAN -- He did.
CASTOR -- And how many times did he do that?
VINDMAN -- I believe it was 3 times.
CASTOR -- And do you have any reason why he asked you to do that?
VINDMAN -- I don’t know, but every single time I dismissed it. Upon returning, I notified my chain of command and the appropriate counterintelligence folks about the offer.

The exchange continued:

CASTOR -- Minister of Defense is a pretty key position for the Ukrainians, President Zelensky, Mr. Dannyluk to bestow that honor on you, at least asking you. That was a big honor, correct?
VINDMAN -- I think it would be a great honor, and frankly I’m aware of service members that have left service to help nurture the developing democracies in that part of the world.

This is highly unusual, that the key witness in the impeachment inquiry of the President of the United States, Lt. Col. Vindman was offered the Defense Ministry for the country of Ukraine several months back.

Jordan Sekulow made the following point:

Why would Ukraine think that someone so low-ranking in the U.S. military, if he had not been someone not been passing information along – We now know that he was the source for the “whistleblower”. Thank you, Adam Schiff for confirming that by not allowing Lt. Col. Vindman to answer the question of “who in the Intelligence Community did he give this information to”? He wouldn’t even let us know what agency that person was in. Adam Schiff was claiming that he doesn’t know the identity of the “whistleblower” and so did Lt. Col. Vindman, under oath. Maybe that’s why Ukraine wanted him as the Minister of Defense because maybe this is a guy who would give them all the information on the United States. They asked him three times, a Lt. Colonel.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Lt. Col (Retired) Skip Ash also said on that show that:

It is very odd . . . they would not even entertain offering him such a job were it not the case that they thought were he to take that job, he would have access in Washington that they don’t have now. And I think some of what his argument has been so far is he has taken on the President’s foreign policy because it’s not as pro-Ukrainian as he would like it to be. So I think there are some problems in keeping everything in perspective.

Whatever the case, it is bizarre. You’re dealing with an impeachment inquiry and this comes up during the hearing.

The key takeaway from all these hearings is that none of the witnesses are saying the President committed bribery or should be removed from office.

You can listen to the entire episode here.