National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, leaves after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 2:55 PM PT — Tuesday, November 19, 2019
A key witness in the Democrat led impeachment inquiry has admitted his testimony is based on hearsay and secondhand information. Speaking before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman said he did not talk to President Trump or Rudy Giuliani around the time of the July phone call.
The National Security Council official previously claimed Ukraine’s probe into the Bidens’ corruption could influence U.S. politics. He admitted his previous concerns of that phone call were based on what he heard about it from someone else. Vindman also claimed he doesn’t know who the so-called whistleblower is.
.@repdevinnunes: "Mr. Vindman, you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistleblower. "
Lt. Col. Alex Vindman: "Ranking Member, it's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please."
Watch LIVE here: https://t.co/4flJQm1g62 pic.twitter.com/oXgiFgbDg6
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 19, 2019
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Trump blasted the hearing as a “kangaroo court,” calling it a “disgrace.”
“It doesn’t matter because right now, you have a kangaroo court headed by little shifty Schiff where we don’t have lawyers, we don’t have witnesses — we don’t have anything. And yet, I just got to watch and the Republicans are absolutely killing it. They are doing so well, because it is a scam.”
– President Donald Trump
When asked about Vindman’s testimony, the president admitted that he watched briefly, but said he doesn’t know the colonel.
“I don’t know Vindman, I never heard of him — what I do know is that even he said the transcript was correct,” stated the president. “And if anybody reads the transcripts, I had two calls with the President of Ukraine – who, by the way, said there was no pressure whatsoever.”
Alexander Vindman throws more cold water on Democrats' hyperbolic accusations.
He testified that the White House readout of President Trump's April 21 phone call mentioning "root out corruption" was "consistent with U.S. policy and these [readouts] are used as messaging tools" pic.twitter.com/jGQ7UERx60
— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) November 19, 2019
President Trump went on to criticize last week’s witnesses as only having secondhand information regarding the Ukraine saga. The White House has since released a statement, saying the American people have learned “nothing new” from Tuesday’s hearings.
Related: Schiff Condemns Partisan Attacks Against Witnesses, Nunes Blasts Media’s Political Bias
A record of a the phone conversation displays the conversation between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine as the House Intelligence Committee holds a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, on Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)