John Yoo attempted to clear up a misunderstanding on Tuesday after he faced scrutiny for appearing to suggest the White House official who is testifying in front of House impeachment investigators was participating in “espionage.”
Yoo, a top Justice Department lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, Berkeley, appeared on The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Monday night to discuss the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, in which he registered two internal complaints about President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.
“I want to clear up a misconception of my remarks on the Laura Ingraham show last night,” he told the Washington Examiner Tuesday. “I did not accuse Lt. Col. Vindman of committing the crime of espionage. I have tremendous respect for a decorated officer of the U.S. Army and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I was addressing was a report that Ukrainian officials had sought to contact Vindaman for advice on how to handle Rudy Giuliani acting as a presidential envoy.”
“I meant to say that this sounded like an espionage operation by the Ukrainians,” he added. “I think it deliberately misconstrues my words to say that the separate issue of the phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian president through the chain of command constitutes espionage by Vindaman, or that Vindaman is some kind of double agent.”
During a segment, Ingraham highlighted a portion of a New York Times report about Vindman’s upcoming testimony. She pointed out that Vindman was born in Ukraine and that Ukrainian officials “sought advice from him about how to deal with” Giuliani.
Yoo, 52, now a professor at the University of California, responded to Ingraham, saying, “I find that astounding. Some people might call that espionage.”
