Neither Johnson nor Tillis raised any objection to the ouster of Vindman [View all]

[dajoki]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-escalates-campaign-of-retribution-as-republican-senators-shrug/2020/02/11/a386a50c-4ce1-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html?

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Some Senate Republicans said they were more concerned about Sondland’s fate. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said that they tried to save Sondland, a major GOP donor, from the embarrassment of being fired on the same day as Vindman. Both senators said they talked to senior White House officials when they learned that Sondland’s job was in jeopardy.

“I just wanted him to be able to leave with dignity,” Johnson said Monday evening. Sondland was said to have been willing to resign his E.U. post within a few weeks had he been given the time.

Neither Johnson nor Tillis raised any objection to the ouster of Vindman, a nonpartisan official who was awarded a Purple Heart for his service in the Iraq War.

Tillis said his motivation for contacting the White House was simply to create some separation between Vindman and Sondland’s dismissals as a way of helping to preserve the public image of Sondland, a Portland-based hotelier whose $1 million in donations to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee paved his way into the president’s inner circle.

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