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 recently circulated through the Army’s senior leadership and is expected to be made public on Tuesday.
Asked to comment, Lt. Col. Gabriel Ramirez, an army spokesman, said in a statement: “It is the Army’s policy not to discuss the council’s results that have not been released.” Vindman declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not comment.
Vindman filed a complaint last August with the Pentagon’s inspector general, alleging that he was retaliated by former White House law firm chiefs John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis for reporting Trump’s misconduct. He also presented allegations of ethics violations by former national security adviser Robert O’Brien for allegedly using official NSC staff time for personal tasks and “humiliating and demoralizing sexist behavior against … professional women of the NSC”. A Trump White House spokesman denied the allegations instead, calling Vindman “a disgruntled junior-level ex-detailee”. This investigation is ongoing.
Eisenberg and Ellis came in with what could have been a Vindman end-of-career assessment last year, saying he lacked judgment and lost the confidence of the senior NSC leadership, according to the complaint filed by Vindman. The promotions committee met about two months after the negative reviews, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But Major General Michel Russell, an assistant deputy chief of staff of the Army did an investigation and found that the assessments were not objective, according to people. In mid-January, his conclusions were approved by Lt. Gen. Gary Brito, chief of staff of the Army, causing the evaluations to be excluded and never reach official records for consideration by the promotions committee, according to the two people. .
Eisenberg contested that he presented the negative assessment in a way designed to harm Vindman’s career, saying that there are strict deadlines for revisions. He declined to comment further than saying that the Army “directed its process”. Ellis did not respond to a request for comment.
In the year before the severe review, Eisenberg in July 2019 wrote that Vindman was “one of the best lawyers and military officers by 1%” 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 the COL. Absolutely unlimited potential! ”
But after the Vindman brothers raised concerns with Eisenberg about Trump’s conduct in the Ukraine call, which took place in late July, both were removed from their jobs and Yevgeny Vindman was rated “Unsatisfactory” and “Disqualified” in his assessment of performance last April, months later he had left the NSC, according to the complaint.
In that April 2020 assessment, Ellis wrote that Vindman was “a hardworking officer, but he often lacks judgment and has difficulty understanding the appropriate role of a lawyer in an organization. … On several occasions, his unprofessional behavior made the NSC team feel uncomfortable. Eisenberg wrote that Vindman “would benefit from additional experience in a slower work environment, subject to less pressure and scrutiny.” He noted that “over time, he can become a better lawyer”.
But Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, and deputy national security adviser Charlie Kupperman said otherwise, and Bolton even praised Vindman’s work in the cable news.
Vindman, who joined the army in 1997 in infantry and served in Iraq as a legal adviser, is currently a lawyer for judges and deputy chief advisor to the Army’s chief technology research, development and engineering command in Aberdeen, Maryland.