Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (video screenshot)
The original source of the Trump-Ukraine impeachment drive was not the anonymous whistleblower, contends investigative reporter Byron York in a new book.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key impeachment witness, was one of several people who listened to Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"But [Vindman] was the only one who was disturbed by what took place. He was the only one who thought there was a problem there," York said in an interview Wednesday with Fox News' Laura Ingraham.
York's new book is "Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment's Never-Ending War on Trump."
"It didn't take a real rocket scientist that the source of this, the original source of this, was Lt. Col. Vindman," York said.
"If you remember early on in the Ukraine matter, the Democrats said they wanted the whistleblower to testify, and then they changed their mind and they didn't want the whistleblower to testify and they began to shut off any Republican attempts to find out who the whistleblower was," he said.
York said the question was "if the whistleblower wasn't in the White House, how did he learn what was going on?"
Vindman told the Intelligence Committee he told only two people outside the White House, State Department Ukraine specialist George Kent and a member of the intelligence community.
"At that point," York said, "Adam Schiff, other Democrats interrupted, you cannot say, you cannot ask the other person he spoke to, and Republicans said well, why can't we ask about that? And they said because it would tend to identify the whistleblower."
Republicans had a "very difficult time handling" Vindman because, although they felt he was the "origin of all this," he was a decorated military officer, York said.
Trump reacted Thursday on Twitter to an excerpt in York's book.
“No, Vindman knew the call itself to the Ukrainian President was ‘perfect’, but also knew the whistleblower report described the call incorrectly, way off. Why didn’t Vindman say so? That’s why Shifty didn’t want the whistleblower to testify. A big scam!” Trump tweeted.
York also claimed Robert Mueller's special counsel team knew early in its investigation there wasn't evidence for Trump-Russia collusion but continued nevertheless.
Mueller "looked into everything, but what was happening was Trump lawyers could see that Mueller wasn't getting anywhere and by the fall and certainly by the end of the year, they knew that collusion was a dry hole for Mueller," York said.
"He had not come up with what he was supposed to find."
The post New book: Vindman, not whistleblower, driving force behind Trump impeachment appeared first on WND.
