Alexander Vindman, the former National Security Council official who testified against President Donald Trump during his first impeachment hearings, is running for Senate in Florida, he announced Tuesday.
Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, will vie for the Democratic nomination to unseat Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., who was appointed to the Senate early last year by Republican governor Ron DeSantis after Marco Rubio left the role to assume his post as secretary of state.
Moody was Florida’s attorney general before she took over the Senate seat.
The two-minute ad Vindman released announcing his run, “Patriot,” focuses on his testimony against Trump and the backlash he faced from the president.
Trump fired Vindman after his October 2019 testimony before the House Select Committee. Vindman said he had overheard the July 2019 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump requested the Ukrainians investigate Joe Biden and his family. Vindman testified that he was concerned that Trump’s demands could “undermine U.S. national security.”
Vindman refers to Trump’s subsequent retaliation in the ad.
“This president unleashed a reign of terror and retribution — not just against me and my family, but against all of us,” Vindman says.
“Today our country is in chaos,” Vindman says over footage of the recent violence in Minneapolis, including the shooting of 37-year-old mother Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. “Thug militias attacking citizens.”








