US President Donald Trump on Friday removed two witnesses from his administration who testified against him in the US House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.
Two days after Trump’s acquittal by the US Senate, Gordon Sondland announced he had been ousted as US ambassador to the EU just hours after the White House dismissed US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the US National Security Council.
Both testified in the inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Vindman was escorted from the White House in the afternoon, along with his twin brother, Yevgeny, a senior lawyer and ethics official on the council, Alexander Vindman’s lawyer David Pressman said.
Pressman said that Alexander Vindman “was asked to leave for telling the truth.”
“The truth has cost Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman his job, his career and his privacy,” Pressman said in a statement.
Hours later, Sondland announced that he too was no longer a member of the Trump administration.
“I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States ambassador to the European Union,” he said in a statement.
Trump appeared to telegraph the moves earlier on Friday.
Asked at the White House whether he wanted Alexander Vindman to leave, Trump said: “Well, I’m not happy with him.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham on Thursday told Fox News that Trump believes he was treated “horribly” during the impeachment inquiry and “maybe people should pay for that.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that Vindman’s firing “was a clear and brazen act of retaliation that showcases the president’s fear of the truth.”
“The president’s vindictiveness is precisely what led Republican senators to be accomplices to his cover-up,” she said.
“The administration’s dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, his brother and US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is clear political retaliation, the likes of which is seen only in authoritarian countries around the world,” US Senator Robert Menendez said in a statement.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary