Former White House chief of staff John Kelly unloaded on President Trump on a litany of issues, ranging from his policies to the decision to remove Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from his post.
During a speech at Drew University on Wednesday night, Kelly suggested it was wrong for Trump to remove Vindman from the National Security Council after he testified in the impeachment hearings. The retired Marine four-star general claimed Vindman did what he was trained to do when he reported concerns about Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader to his boss.
“He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly said. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.”
Kelly argued that Vindman was right to report that Trump asked for information on Joe Biden on the condition of withholding aid because it would lead to a major shift in policy in the region, which Vindman’s boss would need to know.
“Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against … the Russians,” he said. “And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed. And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.”
Kelly also claimed Vindman’s report on Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was akin to hearing an “illegal order” from a superior. He noted that members of the military are trained to not follow orders that break U.S. law.
“We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss,’” Kelly explained.
Vindman, who was also an impeachment witness, was escorted out of the White House along with his brother Yevgeny, a senior lawyer on the NSC who had no role in the impeachment investigation, on Friday. Trump was acquitted of two Ukraine-related articles of impeachment by the Senate two days prior.
Trump said this week, any disciplinary action taken against Vindman, whom he described as “insubordinate,” will be up to the military.
Vindman wasn’t the only subject of Kelly’s speech, he also condemned Trump for his treatment of illegal immigrants and the media. Kelly asserted that the press was not “the enemy of the people” and maintained that most illegal immigrants are “overwhelmingly good people.”
He also addressed the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who had been convicted of one war crime after being cleared of several others. Trump pardoned Gallagher on the charge of taking a photograph with the corpse of an ISIS fighter.
Kelly said Trump should not have intervened in the decision as to whether Gallagher should keep his Trident pin after being pardoned, saying, “The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do. Had I been there, I think I could have prevented it.”
Kelly worked in Trump’s administration from July 2017 to January 2019 after a lengthy career in the U.S. Marine Corps. After Kelly resigned from the White House, he admitted that he felt “bad” about leaving.
