A retired Army officer who worked with Democrat “star witness” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in Grafenwoher, Germany, claims Vindman “really talked up” President Barack Obama and ridiculed America and Americans in front of Russian military officers.
In an eye-opening thread on Twitter last week, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Jim Hickman said that he “verbally reprimanded” Vindman after he heard some of his derisive remarks for himself. “Do not let the uniform fool you,” Hickman wrote. “He is a political activist in uniform.”
Hickman’s former boss at the Joint Multinational Simulation Center in Grafenwoehr has since gone on the record to corroborate his story.
Hickman, 52, says he’s a disabled wounded warrior who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who received numerous medals, including the Purple Heart.
The retired officer said that Vindman, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Ukraine, made fun of the United States to the point that it made other soldiers “uncomfortable.” For example, Hickman told American Greatness that he heard Vindman call Americans “rednecks”—a word that needed to be translated for the Russians. He said they all had a big laugh at America’s expense.
Vindman, who serves on the National Security Council (NSC), appeared last week before the House Intelligence Committee and testified that he’d had “concerns” about the July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Vindman’s testimony rested on his negative opinions of the call, rather than any new facts about the call.
Vindman’s former boss, NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Tim Morrison, threw cold water on Vindman’s claims in his own testimony later in the week, saying he didn’t have concerns that “anything illegal was discussed” in the phone call. Morrison also testified that Ukrainian officials were not even aware that military funding had been delayed by the Trump Administration until late August 2019, more than a month after the Trump-Zelensky call.
“Completely Beyond Reproach”
Hickman said he decided to come forward because Vindman “disobeyed a direct order from the commander-in-chief, his boss,” made his testimony “about his foreign policy opinions versus facts,” and “wore his Army service uniform to make a political statement” against the president.
“Then right on cue, the mainstream media began calling him a war hero with a purple heart, and completely beyond reproach,” Hickman wrote in a statement to American Greatness and another journalist. “Knowing his political bias, backed by his somewhat radical left-leaning ideology, it was my obligation, indeed my duty, to come forward with this information. I couldn’t go to the same mainstream media to put it out, nor could I go to the Army, as they’re backing Vindman, so I took to Twitter, a source for getting the truth out,” he added.
According to Hickman, Vindman was the Defense Department attaché at the Russian embassy in Germany when he met him in 2013. He told American Greatness that he also met Vindman’s twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman while he was stationed in Germany.
“I know LTC Alex Vindman from a Combined US-Russian exercise called Atlas Vision [13] in Grafenwoher,” Hickman wrote on Twitter. “He worked with the Russian Embassy and I was assigned to the JMTC (Joint Multinational Training Command), within USAREUR (US Army Europe). He worked coordination w/the Russian 15th Peacekeeping Brigade, and I was in charge of all Simulations planning, as well as assisting the USAREUR Lead Planner as the Senior Military Planner.”
Hickman provided American Greatness with a picture of himself and his wife while he was on vacation in Venice during that time period.
He noted that he and Vindman had “interacted on several different occasions throughout the planning cycle, but it was during the actual execution of the exercise that we had an issue relevant to his recent testimony.”
I’d really like to know the particulars on his Purple Heart citation. Monsieur kerry had 3 and not a scar on him…
Vindman certainly has all the qualifications to serve in the Obama administration. Lt. Col Hickman should be called to testify.
I had this in hand but was reluctant to use it in my piece on Vindman until I was sure it was legitimate.
@Bookdoc:
all self inflicted
And who is Lt. Colonel Jim Hickman, that his story should be unquestioningly believed or his opinion trusted? He’s one online photograph with a recent Twitter account and the skimpiest biographical information imaginable, of which he himself is the only apparent source. He might not even be real, let alone reliable.
And seriously…a verbal reprimand?
@Greg:
Well, who the hell is Vindman and why should anyone believe him? At least Hickman has another officer backing up his story. All Vindman has to do is say he thinks this happened and you gobble it up like apple pie.