BREAKING: Trump has fired Lt Col Vindman, whose damning testimony confirmed Trump tried to bribe and extort Ukraine. This firing is an abuse of power and another impeachable offense. Trump retaliated against an American patriot, on Veteran’s Day weekend. Disgusting and pathetic.
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) November 11, 2019
The reporting hinged on comments from national security adviser Robert O’Brien, who told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that a substantial number of people on the NSC will be returned to their respective government agencies in the near future in an effort to streamline the NSC, which has bloated to more than 230 individuals.
As O’Brien explained, the NSC is comprised of security and intelligence experts from numerous government agencies, who serve an appointment on the NSC before returning to their agency of employment.
“We’re streamlining the National Security Council. There are people that are detailed from different departments and agencies. My understanding is he — that Col. Vindman— is detailed from the Department of Defense. So everyone who’s detailed at the NSC, people are going to start going back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks,” O’Brien said. “But we’re going to get that number down to around a hundred people.”
It turned out that O’Brien was only commenting on the impending NSC staff reductions — not implying that Vindman would be fired. – read more