On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy talked to One America News Network’s Neil McCabe about the recent subpoena of Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman who will testify today in the ‘impeachment’ star chamber.
During the course of the conversation, McCabe illustrated how Vindman, a Ukrainian is technically a partisan witness that claimed that 4 million in aid was withheld from the Ukrainian government. McCabe and Leahy questioned whether this was a form of treason or spying. ‘In that period of July and August when all this stuff was going down, he brought in Ukrainians to the White House to try to work with them to see if they could get this aid flowing again. So, he was informing officials of a foreign power of the inter-workings of the President’s decision making,’ said McCabe.
Leahy: We are joined now by our good friend Neil McCabe. Washington correspondent for One America News Network. An Army veteran, and member of the Army Reserve. A tough sergeant who knows how to run hard. (Laughs) And can still run a nine-minute mile for which I am eternally jealous of you Neil McCabe. I don’t think I could do a 10-minute mile these days sad to say. So what is going on with this Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman? What’s going on with him?
McCabe: Hold on, friend. I did an 8:40 mile for my PT test by the way.
Leahy: Oh, see, just continuing to embarrass me. (McCabe laughs) Hey, McCabe listen, I’ll tell you what. I think I’m going to challenge you.
McCabe: Oh?
Leahy: I’m going to challenge you to a run sometime next summer. You and me. Mano a mano.
McCabe: I’d love that.
Leahy: How long do you want to go? Three miles four miles?
McCabe: Four miles.
Leahy: OK. We’ll do a four-mile run. I will challenge you, buddy! Mano a mano – what do you say? (Chuckles)
McCabe: Absolutely.
Leahy: We’ll do it sometime this summer.
McCabe: So Colonel Vindman.
Leahy: What’s the deal with this guy? Does anybody who’s like a low-level bureaucrat get to testify that Donald Trump is a bad man?
McCabe: Right. I think there was a meter maid who was upset about Trump’s policies. She filed a whistleblower complaint and now she’s going to testify. (Smithson chuckles) It’s very interesting that not only did the Washington Post have a full file on a guy that they posted last night that nobody had ever heard of right?
I talked to a Pentagon spokesperson Friday who made it clear to me no one else from the defense department has been asked to testify. Because I was asking about Laura Cooper. They had to know. They had to know that Vindman was in the works.
So I think they were kind of dishonest with me. But having said that, this guy Vindman and his twin brother. They’re both army lieutenant colonels. they both worked in the White House in the old executive office building with offices across from each other. Basically, his brother works in ethics and this guy Alexander is working on the Ukraine account. They were born in Ukraine.
They grew up in Little Odessa which is a neighborhood in Manhattan of basically Ukrainians. He was upset that the Ukrainian aid was being held back. So basically you have 400 million dollars of pork for his home town of Ukraine and he decided that he needed to complain about it.
So they said he got a congressional subpoena. Well, who’s even heard of the guy right? So obviously there’s some back and forth in some back channels. He was given the subpoena. Everyone in the administration has been ordered not to participate in these hearings because they are illegitimate.
But he will testify today and is basically treating the President’s order as an unlawful order. And he’s doing it because his precious Ukraine was made to wait for their 400 million dollars.
Leahy: Isn’t it clear this guy has an utter conflict of interest. He’s pursuing a personal agenda and not following the lawful instructions of the President? How does he get away with this?
McCabe: How does he get away with it? We’ll see if he gets away with it. In that period of July and August when all this stuff was going down, he brought in Ukrainians to the White House to try to work with them to see if they could get this aid flowing again. So, he was informing officials of a foreign power of the inter-workings of the President’s decision making. Maybe that’s not spying?
Leahy: It sounds like on the edge of treason to me.
McCabe: It sounds like spying. But you know we’ll see. You can do whatever you want to Donald Trump apparently. He doesn’t get anything. But let me just say this, Vindman testifies today.
Leahy: Before in the star chamber of Adam ‘pencil neck’ Schiff?
McCabe: Right. And so they’re having that vote Thursday to formally authorize the investigation. And that’s going to be a very important test vote of the tradition or the custom on the Hill is that regardless of policy disagreements it is expected that people will vote on a party-line if it has to with the procedure. Or a technicality. So I don’t expect any Republican defections.
Leahy: Do you expect any Democratic defections?
McCabe: Maybe a few. Remember there are 31 Democrats sitting in districts that Trump won. But I think that the weird thing here is that people don’t appreciate that the House Republicans are virtually to the man behind Trump and they’ve always been behind Trump. And you even saw it during the campaign.
He was supposed to meet with the House Republicans for an hour. He ended up staying three hours. Taking pictures. Talking to family members. There’s a real bond between Trump and the House Republicans. And the Republican senators a lot of them frankly despise the President.
And if this thing goes to the Senate it’s going to be a close vote. I think there’s going to be a lot of Republican senators who flake.
Leahy: Interesting. Interesting. By the way, does Katie Hill who resigned under that scandal that she was involved in…
McCabe: Yeah that poor girl. She’s been through a lot Mike.
Leahy: Yeah, I feel so sorry for her. (Chuckles) Anyways, is her resignation effective before or after Thursday?
McCabe: That’s an interesting question. Because of course, she was the Vice-Chair of House oversight.
Leahy: Well, she was overseeing a little more than the Trump administration apparently. (Chuckles)
McCabe: Listen that hair wasn’t going to brush itself, Michael. (Laughs)
Smithson: Oh my.
(Uncontrollable laughter)
Leahy: That’s a good one. So anyways, does she vote or not? Do you know?
McCabe: I don’t have the answer for that. But what I do know is that House Republicans are having a press conference today at 10 am. And they’re going to make the point that in the Nixon and Clinton impeachment fight the minority party was allowed to subpoena documents and witnesses.
Hire staff. They need their own investigators and they need their own lawyers. Unlike the Clinton and Nixon impeachment, the minority absolutely this time around can go on offense.
Leahy: On offense yeah. I’ve been reading reports that the venue now goes from Adam ‘shifty’ Schiff, ‘pencil neck’ Schiff’s intelligence committee to Jerry Nadler’s judiciary committee. Is that correct?
McCabe: There’s this Obama judge, Howell who issued an opinion on whether the grand jury testimony and evidence, can the House Democrats get a hold of Mueller’s grand jury material? The administration says no. And this federal judge Howell said no. And she just didn’t say no.
She wrote like an 80-page opinion and basically wandered into all sorts of avenues of the law that she as never asked about. But one of the things that came up in that opinion was that by tradition impeachments have been held by the judiciary.
Leahy: Right.
McCabe: Now, Pelosi wants control of this process. And so Schiff is under her thumb because he is a California Democrat and she has more influence over his contributors than he does. And so Nadler is a New York guy and they don’t have the same control over Nadler that they do for Schiff.
Leahy: Where do you think it heads up? What happens on Friday? What committee starts looking into it on Friday?
McCabe: I think they’re going to switch it over to judiciary and they’re trying to fast track this thing because they have 19 days in session.
Leahy: And will they succeed in fast-tracking?
McCabe: Yeah, yeah yeah. They will vote for impeachment.
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