Trump Ukraine adviser to testify about concerns over call

President Donald Trump’s top adviser on Ukraine is set to testify on Tuesday that he told a government lawyer about concerns that U.S. national security could be undermined after a phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman will be the first current White House official to testify behind closed doors in the impeachment inquiry led by the House of Representatives Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.

Vindman, director of European affairs on the National Security Council, arrived at the Capitol shortly after 9 a.m. in full-dress Army uniform.

Vindman is the first person to testify in the inquiry who listened in on the July 25 call, in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic political rival, and his son Hunter Biden, who had served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

The call prompted a complaint from an intelligence community whistleblower that led to the inquiry.

In his prepared opening statement, Vindman recounted listening in on the call.

“I was concerned by the call,” he says. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine.”

“I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security,” he says.