Alexander Vindman, Key Witness in First Trump Impeachment, May Run for US Senate in Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Alexander Vindman — the now-retired Army officer whose testimony provided critical evidence in the first impeachment of President Donald Trump — is now living a much quieter life in Broward County.

Heavily involved in public policy and politics, he’d return to a much higher profile if he decides to run for U.S. Senate in 2026, something Vindman said in a recent interview he’s contemplating.

“So what I’m thinking is that I have a strong disposition to serve and that I spent 22 years in the military and I’m always looking for ways to pitch in and how to build communities,” he said. “What am I thinking? I’m thinking, ‘How do I pitch in?’ — but that doesn’t necessarily mean my own run.”

Pressed about the Senate race, Vindman said, “I’m looking at it. I’m looking at how we could win back a Senate majority. That doesn’t mean just me.”

Florida has a U.S. Senate election in 2026 because U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Fla., resigned when he became Trump’s secretary of state. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Ashley Moody to fill the vacancy, and she is running to keep it in Republican hands.

Vindman said it’s essential for Democrats to win congressional seats next year, and like many his party, believes winning control of the House of Representatives is the most doable path to providing a check on Trump.

“President Trump is a snake oil salesman, he convinced a lot of people that he’s going to make their lives better. Instead he’s made them worse,” Vindman said. “So I think about how we could put in some guardrails, whether that’s the House or the Senate to make sure that he, his worst instincts, his efforts to undercut social safety nets for millions, tens of millions of Americans. How do we fix that? How do we address those issues?”

Historic call

Vindman had a 22-year career in the Army, including assignments in U.S. embassies in Moscow and in Kiev, Ukraine, and at the Pentagon and the White House. An infantry officer, he was deployed to Iraq for combat operations, and was awarded a Purple Heart.

As a lieutenant colonel, his last assignment was director of European affairs for the National Security Council. It was in that role that he was one of the staffers listening to the now-infamous 2019 phone call in which Trump pushed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to come up with dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Biden was the former vice president at the time and loomed as a political threat to Trump, eventually winning the presidency the next year.

During the call, which Trump famously called a “perfect” call, he threatened to withhold U. S. aid to Ukraine to get what he wanted.

Vindman reported his concerns through the chain of command and ultimately testified before a House committee that it was “improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent” a move that “had significant national security implications from our country.”

NPR described his testimony “in full dress uniform (from an) active-duty officer in the U.S. Army testifying against his commander in chief” as “one of the most electrifying moments of the impeachment hearings.”

The House of Representatives impeached and the Senate acquitted him. Days later, Vindman and his twin brother were removed from their National Security Council jobs. With his promotion to full colonel blocked, he ultimately resigned his commission.

Vindman today

Now retired, Vindman is busy.

He is a senior adviser with VoteVets, an organization that recruits and helps veterans run for office. He writes “Why It Matters” dispatches on Substack, posts videos and opines on social media, delivers lectures and appears on podcasts.

Vindman also has written two bestselling books, “Here, Right Matters: An American Story,” published in 2021, and “The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine,” released this year.

And he’s been participating, somewhat quietly, in Democratic Party events.

In April, he was the featured speaker at the Davie-Cooper City Democratic Club, where he discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In May, he led hundreds of attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance at the Broward Democratic Party’s Obama Roosevelt Legacy Gala. In June, he was at the Florida Democratic Party’s Leadership Blue conference and fundraising dinner.

On his social media accounts, he’s posted from citizen protests against Trump from Fort Lauderdale and Asheville, N.C., where he participated in one of the thousands of nationwide “No Kings” events on June 14.

Writing on Substack, Vindman said the No Kings “were well-attended, well-organized, and showed just how much people-power can be mobilized in opposition to Trump. … What I especially appreciated about the No Kings protest was the fact that this movement is based on patriotic opposition to the Trump administration’s desire for rule by monarchy and oligarchy. This movement is a reflection of the concepts at the heart of the American revolution and it gives me great hope for the coming midterms.”

Home in Broward

Vindman, now 50, and his family moved to Broward in 2023.

Politically, he said, Florida was “not the easiest place to move to for a state that’s been captured by extremists on the right.”

But, he said, “I love it here in Broward County.”

The Vindmans are in Broward because his best friend from his first military assignment grew up in Hollywood. When the friend finished his military service, he moved to Broward, and the Vindmans had been visiting for years.

“This is the first place I get to choose where to live,” he said. “The military sent me all over the place, so I’m a Floridian by choice, not because somebody told me to live here.”

Vindman said he was drawn by the “excellent quality of life … good schools, good quality of life. Just like anywhere else, there are challenges to overcome, but we’re really enjoying it down here.”

Broward is one of the few places in Florida that is heavily Democratic. Did that influence the decision about where to live? “To a certain extent maybe it did, but not in the way that maybe some people are thinking about it.”

“Just recognizing that we are in an environment where the president of the United States does not believe in democracy, where he targets his opponents, and we’re in a world where people like myself that took a principled stand, reported presidential corruption, have to be concerned about political retribution,” he said. “So maybe a little bit, but if that was the fear that was driving me, I wouldn’t have chosen Florida. So I do what I think is right, and damn the consequences.”

Senate outlook

Given the attempts to discredit him that accompanied his testimony about Trump and his twin brother Eugene Vindman’s election to Congress last year from a Virginia district, he has a sense of what a Senate candidacy would entail, said Rick Hoye, chair of the Broward Democratic Party.

“I’m sure he’s 1,000% aware of what would be coming his way,” Hoye said.

Hoye said Vindman “could do well” as a Senate candidate, but does not know what he will do. “I know he’s thinking about it.”

Publicly, Democratic leaders profess optimism about the possibilities in Florida next year. The midterm election after a presidential race is usually good for the party that doesn’t control the White House.

But Democrats don’t have an easy path in Florida.

The Republican advantage in registered voters has been growing for several years, and now stands at 1.3 million. Democrats have won only two U.S. Senate races in Florida in the last 20 years, in 2006 and 2012; Republicans have won five.

And Moody successfully ran statewide twice for her previous job, Florida attorney general.

After WFOR-Ch. 4 first reported last month that Vindman might run for Senate, state Republican Party Chair Evan Power said “the last thing our state wants is someone who was part of the obstruction of the first Trump Administration. Vindman should take his lies and his political opportunism elsewhere.”

Another Democrat, Josh Weil, has already announced his candidacy for the Senate nomination.

Weil briefly ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, but dropped out before the primary. He lost a special congressional election in April.

Weil said in a recent interview he’s spoken to Vindman about his intentions.

“He’s monitoring this race for a couple of months to see how it goes,” Weil said. “As in an election, we believe that if we handle our business, if we raise enough money, if we start investing it in the right places, that you can take a lead in a race and control that. Maybe makes it look less attractive to others. … We’ll see if he ends up entering the race.”

If Vindman runs, Hoye said he expects an announcement would come relatively soon.

But the potential candidate said recently he didn’t have a timeframe for when he’d have to make a decison. “I don’t know. That would indicate some really sharp thinking about this. It’s all speculative at this point.”

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