The Democrats and the legacy media continue to propagate the false narrative that the firing of the Vindman twins – and now the projected reassignment of at least 70 other staffers – from the National Security Council is either witness retaliation, retribution, part of the “ongoing cover-up,” or just “pure cussed orneriness” on the part of the President in the aftermath of his acquittal-for-life. Here’s an example from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

First of all, as explained in detail here, every single person at the NSC serves at the President’s pleasure, and he can fire any of them at any time for any reason. But there are more reasons to clean out the NSC than the insubordination, subterfuge, and sedition manifested by the Vindmans. Some of those were explained during a Q&A with Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and historian and author Victor Davis Hanson on the Ingraham Angle on FNC Monday night. Let’s pick up the dialog:

Ingraham: This is a welcome development. I almost choked in saying 70 [from the NSC are being reassigned]. Why did it take so long, and how many others are burrowed into other agencies – also the CIA, also the FBI – working against Trump in various different ways?

Zeldin: This is a big deal, and this is the President’s staff. And every president has the prerogative to make changes as to what they want their NSC to look like. For President Trump, you could argue that this should have happened a long time ago – maybe as soon as he came in office. If he wants to have an NSC that has 80 staffers, 150 staffers, 200, that’s his prerogative. It’s not just inside the NSC, specifically as we’re talking about, LTC Vindman is the perfect example. Tim Morrison testified that he had a problem with LTC Vindman’s judgment. Fiona Hill told Tim Morrison that she had concerns about LTC Vindman’s judgment. Fiona Hill’s deputy, others in the NSC. And then you have LTC Vindman after the July 25th phone call contacting the whistleblower before sharing any concerns with Tim Morrison [Vindman’s boss], and then lied about it when asked about it during the impeachment inquiry. Remember, LTC Vindman and Adam Schiff said that they had no idea who the whistleblower was. However, if LTC Vindman says the name of the one person other than George Kent he spoke to outside the NSC, he would therefore be saying that name be naming the whistleblower. Well, if you are honest and have integrity, how is it that you don’t know who the whistleblower is but naming that one person would out him?

Ingraham: Now, he never should have been at the NSC staff, and yet he was in there. Chuck Schumer is not taking Vindman’s removal very well and is gonna do something about it (plays a video of Schumer asking 74 IGs to investigate “any and all instances of retaliation against anyone who has made … protected disclosures of presidential misconduct”) There’s no conceivable way that Vindman’s removal is retaliation … is any intent to retaliate … so what’s the point of this, and why are there so many inspectors general?

VDH: Well, Senator Schumer should be careful for what he wishes for because the NSC, with these Obama holdovers, have been a fount of most of Trump’s problems about leaking. Remember, two of them – Grace and Misko – went right over to work for Schiff and are on that staff right now. The whistleblower was in the NSC, and the Vindman twins were in the NSC, and Fiona Hill was in the NSC who was at odds with a Trump support [Kash] Patel. And remember another thing that’s very strange. Ben Rhodes was the deputy National Security Adviser under Obama, and Jake Sullivan was a National Security Adviser for Joe Biden. In early 2018, they had a big press conference. They were going to make an anti-Trump foreign policy conglomerate – a “national security agency.” And before they left [in early 2017], that National Security Council ballooned to 230 people, and they were in contact, obviously, with a lot of these people that were holdovers that were feeding them information all about what was going on because we had leak after leak after leak coming out of the NSC. And I think another thing … I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but we’ve had four National Security Advisers now, and there was a reason why Michael Flynn was taken out very early because of all the National Security Advisers, he was going to make it a point to clean house. And once he was gone, it think they said, Michael Flynn was controversial, and we’re going to get people who are not controversial, and those Obama people had been deliberately planted there, and I think probably by Ben Rhodes. … and they caused a lot of damage.

Ingraham: Think of that; it was actually smart of them to do this. They were plotting into the Age of Trump. Obama leaves, but they had their people in there and, for whatever reason, our White House personnel director – or a combination of factors – didn’t recognize it, didn’t think it was a concern, but now [National Security Adviser Robert] O’Brien is awesome … he gets it.

Zeldin: When H.R. McMaster was there who replaced Michael Flynn, you had people who were brought into McMaster’s closest inner circle, and the people running the NSC were people Ben Rhodes had hired during President Obama’s administration, who McMaster decided to elevate to these levels. So remember the “do not congratulate” leaks that came out right before H.R. McMaster was fired … that memo … those leaks … came right from the top … these were people that Ben Rhodes brought in and they get elevated. So fast forward to O’brien. He said he was going to do this months ago, and now it’s a great time to do it. The impeachment’s over, it’s time to move forward, there’s been great national foreign policy wins, and the best way to have more wins is to have a staff you trust.