"you're fired" are apparently Trump's favorite words.

1.  What was Lt Colonol Alexander Vindman's job in the bureaucracy?
He was a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council.

2. What did Vindman testify during the impeachment investigation?He testified that he found the call inappropriate and that he saw it as “improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent.”

3. What did the White House do to Vindman and his brother?
He has been removed from his post and his twin brother, a lawyer for the National Security Council, was also reassigned.


4. How is the White House justifying this action?
The White House is framing this not as payback against Vindman, but as a broader shrinking of the NSC staff. 

5. Why does the author argue that this creates a danger for other civil servants?
If the White House succeeds in uprooting officials it sees as disloyal to Trump, there will be even fewer checks on an emboldened president.

6. What was Gordon Sondland's job in the Trump Administration? 
Ambassador to the European Union.


7. What did Ambassador Sondland testify during the impeachment investigation?“Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” he said in his opening statement. “The answer is yes.” He also said, "Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President."

8. What was Sondland's background before becoming the ambassador?
He was a major Trump donor.


9. Who else might the Trump Administration take action against, according to this article?
George Kent — one of the diplomatic corps’ top Ukraine experts who testified in the House impeachment investigation. Or Laura Cooper, the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, who told investigators the White House directed the freeze on military aid to Kyiv.

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