Alexander Vindman calls Trump a "useful idiot" for Putin

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a key witness in President Trump's impeachment inquiry, told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that he believes Trump is a "useful idiot" and "unwitting agent" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Of note: He doubled down on his comments in an interview with NBC News airing Monday evening, saying Trump's "infatuated" with Putin and that some had described their relationship as "a kind of a love affair."

"I know that other senior government officials suspect that Putin might have dirt on him. But frankly, they don’t have to use coercive force. What they have is a willing participant in their enterprise."

Context: The Atlantic and NBC interviews are the first Vindman has had since he was fired from his position as the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council and retired from the military earlier this year. He claims that he was retaliated against for testifying that Trump's campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden was "improper."

What else he's saying: "I just had a visceral reaction to what I was hearing," he told The Atlantic, referencing what Trump has described as a "perfect" phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I suspected it was criminal, but I knew it was wrong."

• "Trump knew he had them over a barrel. I found it repulsive and un-American for an American president to try to get a leg up by pressuring a foreign leader to get dirt on an American politician."
• "I knew by then that Giuliani was somewhere in the background. But I refused to believe that the president was party to what Rudy was doing. I learned in that phone call that the president was the driving force."

On whether Putin has some kind of leverage over Trump, which former director of national intelligence Dan Coats reportedly believes, Vindman said: "They may or may not have dirt on him, but they don’t have to use it. They have more effective and less risky ways to employ him."

• "He has aspirations to be the kind of leader that Putin is, and so he admires him," Vindman continued. "He likes authoritarian strongmen who act with impunity, without checks and balances. So he’ll try to please Putin.”
• “In the Army we call this ‘free chicken,’ something you don’t have to work for—it just comes to you. This is what the Russians have in Trump: free chicken.”

The big picture: "With previous Democratic and Republican administrations, there have been left and right guardrails that helped define what was acceptable in terms of Russia policy. I thought we were operating within those boundaries," Vindman said.

• I didn’t know precisely what Trump’s boundaries would be, but I did think we would be operating within boundaries."

Editor's note: This article has been updated with Vindman's comments to NBC.