3/15/21
Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel, despite attempts by loyalists to former President Donald Trump to derail his career following his bit role in the president's first impeachment, according to two people familiar with the matter. Vindman’s twin brother, Alex Vindman, was a star witness in Trump’s impeachment trial and accused the president of pressuring the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. Alex Vindman chose to retire from the military last July as a lieutenant colonel after what he called “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” and is now writing a memoir and getting a doctorate. But Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who was the senior ethics official at the National Security Council and its deputy legal adviser from July 2018 to February 2020, has stayed in the military. Both brothers were fired from the NSC a year ago by Trump, escorted out of the White House and sent back to the Pentagon. Yevgeny Vindman is now on a list of colonel promotions that has been approved by the White House and is going to the Senate for formal confirmation, according to the two people familiar with the matter. The list has recently circulated through senior leadership in the Army and is expected to be publicly released on Tuesday.
Vindman filed a complaint last August with the Pentagon inspector general alleging he was retaliated against by his former White House counsel's office bosses, John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, for reporting misconduct by Trump. Eisenberg and Ellis filed what could have been a career-ending evaluation of Vindman last year, saying he lacked judgment and had lost the trust of senior NSC leadership, according to the complaint Vindman filed. But Maj. Gen. Michel Russell, an assistant deputy chief of staff in the Army, conducted an investigation and found the evaluations to not be objective, according to the people. In mid-January, his findings were approved by Lt. Gen. Gary Brito, chief of personnel for the Army, leading to the evaluations being deleted and never making it into the official records for the promotions board to consider, according to the two people. The year prior to the harsh review, Eisenberg in July 2019 wrote that Vindman was “a top 1% military attorney and officer” and “he can do any job in the legal field under unusual and constant pressure and scrutiny. Select now for SSC [Senior Service College] and promote immediately to COL.” But after the Vindman brothers raised concerns with Eisenberg about Trump’s conduct on the Ukraine call, which occurred later that July, both were sidelined from their jobs.
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