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Trump Impeachment Whistleblower Launches Senate Bid In Florida

WASHINGTON ― Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key figure from President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, is launching a long-shot bid to oust GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in Florida.

“Today, our country is in chaos,” Vindman said in a video announcing his campaign on Tuesday. “Thug militias attacking citizens. Tariffs pushing prices sky-high. Health care premiums through the roof. And Florida homeowners are being absolutely screwed because Ashley Moody caved to the big insurance companies.”

Vindman served as the director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term and was also a key witness during his 2019 impeachment proceedings. The military veteran and Purple Heart recipient testified how Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless its government opened an investigation into his then Democratic political opponent Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. As a result of his testimony, Vindman was removed from his position, and his promotion to the rank of colonel was ultimately stalled, leading to his retirement from the military.

In this Nov. 19, 2019, file photo National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. Vindman was escorted out of the White House complex on Feb. 7, 2020, according to his lawyer.

“My family came here as refugees to escape tyranny, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to bow down to some wannabe tyrant,” Vindman, who was born in Soviet Ukraine but now resides in Florida, said in the video. “This president unleashed a reign of terror and retribution, not just against me and my family, but against all of us.”

Vindman’s twin brother, Eugene, serves as the Democratic representative for Virginia’s 7th congressional district.

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Democrats are facing an uphill battle in Florida, a state that has trended redder and redder in recent elections. Moody, the state’s former attorney general, was appointed in January to the Senate by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace former Sen. Marco Rubio after Rubio became Trump’s secretary of state. She has been a loyal MAGA foot soldier in the Senate and has Trump’s endorsement in the special election to fill the remainder of Rubio’s term.

Senate Democrats also don’t consider Florida as a state that’s key to plan for retaking control of the chamber next year. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, recently teamed up with Moody to introduce legislation that would ban congressional stock trading.

Trump’s cratering public approval ratings, as well as the growing national backlash to his policies on the economy and on immigration, could at least put pressure on national Republicans to spend precious time and money on a seat that is expected to stay in the GOP’s column.

Vindman joins a crowded field already vying for the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida, including progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon, and Jennifer Jenkins, a former school board member.

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In his announcement video on Monday, Vindman took aim at Moody’s stock trades and record in Congress.

“They put Moody in the Senate to be a ‘yes’ vote for Trump and the billionaires,” he said. “She’s not Florida’s senator. She’s theirs.”

“The billionaires and special interests will throw everything they’ve got to try to stop us,” he added. “But in the infantry, we didn’t back down from a fight. In a democracy, you decide who’s gonna stand for you ― the patriot or the politician. Join us.”