After an impeachment hearing that featured
Republicans suggesting National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was insufficiently loyal to America on Tuesday, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and former Trump aide Christian Whiton openly mocked the
Iraq War veteran for wearing his Army uniform to testify.During Tuesday night’s broadcast of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs—who also serves as an informal adviser to the president—groused about Vindman requesting Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) properly refer to him by his military rank during the hearing.“This Colonel Vindman, who insisted for some reason on wanting to be called lieutenant colonel,” the Fox host grumbled. “I have never heard anyone referred to a lieutenant colonel as lieutenant colonel when addressing them verbally but, you know, as he wishes. I mean, he looks like a popinjay, he really does!”Later in the program, after Dobbs asserted that the
American public is already growing bored with the impeachment hearings, Whiton embraced the latest Trumpist strategy of ridiculing a decorated military officer.“You see Vindman, this bureaucrat who poured himself into an Army outfit to go and frankly speak contemptuous things against the commander-in-chief, incidentally, a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Whiton declared.“If you did that as a private in the Army you would get court-martialed,” the ex-Trump adviser continued. “I guess if you're, you know, a never-Trump bureaucrat Deep State crybaby you get away with it.”Whiton went on to complain that Vindman wasn’t a “political appointee” of Trump’s, claiming this is the “way the Deep State works” to take down a president.“They take detailees, not the best from these agencies, often the worst, they stick them into the
White House,” he concluded. “It's a practice that frankly should end, and the political appointees, Tim Morrison and [Kurt] Volker aren't mistaking themselves for the president, it's these Deep State bureaucrats that do.”