Of course, we live in extremely polarized times, and impeachment is serious business, so it was unsurprising that the GOP apparatus immediately began impugning Vindman’s motives in one of the most repellent ways possible.

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First, it was Fox News’s Laura Ingraham and Berkeley professor John Yoo:

Then, on Tuesday morning, it was “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade’s chance for a bite at the dual-loyalties apple:

Later Tuesday morning, recently retired GOP congressman Sean P. Duffy (Wis.) took to CNN to make a similar baseless allegation:

It is truly extraordinary to hear even rabid partisans like Ingraham, Yoo, Kilmeade and Duffy question a decorated war hero’s bona fides because he was an immigrant — and by “extraordinary,” I mean insidious and anti-American. As Jonathan Chait noted:

The Republican position is that there’s no loyalty problem involved in having American foreign policy conducted by an off-the-books lawyer with no security clearance who was apparently on the payroll of the Russian Mafia. The security problem is the NSC official advising an American ally about how to deal with the goons demanding that the ally subvert the independence of its judicial system and insert itself into the American election.

The GOP attack seems particularly malignant given Vindman’s actual backstory, as detailed in his prepared testimony:

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The privilege of serving my country is not only rooted in my military service, but also in my personal history. I sit here, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, an immigrant. My family fled the Soviet Union when I was three and a half years old. Upon arriving in New York City in 1979, my father worked multiple jobs to support us, all the while learning English at night. He stressed to us the importance of fully integrating into our adopted country. For many years, life was quite difficult. In spite of our challenging beginnings, my family worked to build its own American dream. I have a deep appreciation for American values and ideals and the power of freedom. I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics

Even Rudolph W. Giuliani got in on the baseless smear action. So this would seem to be another sad day in which yet another norm was eviscerated by today’s Trump-controlled GOP.

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That, however, would be an unfair reading of what happened after the baseless accusations were leveled against Vindman. The story that emerged was that the norm under attack emerged stronger than before.

By midday Tuesday, key members of the GOP’s congressional leadership had pushed back pretty hard against these accusations. Politico’s Burgess Everett and Melanie Zanona reported that “Republicans may quibble with the substance of Vindman’s testimony as they try to protect Trump from the fast-moving impeachment inquiry. But congressional GOP leaders say it’s out of bounds to question Vindman’s patriotism and allegiance to the United States, as some conservative pundits did on Monday night.”

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Everett and Zanona are correct. They quote GOP Sens. John Thune (S.D.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Rick Scott (Fla.) and James Lankford (Okla.) all rejecting this attack on Vindman. Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) went out of her way to defend Vindman:

After they filed their story, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) told Everett, “I’m not going to question the patriotism of any of the people coming forward.” Follow-on reporting from my Post colleagues Rachael Bade, Karoun Demirjian, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim revealed similar comments from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and others despite the devastating nature of Vindman’s testimony.

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To be clear, plenty of GOP members of Congress disagreed with Vindman’s testimony and defended Trump. They were nonetheless quite clear, however, that questioning the patriotism of those testifying was not an appropriate form of attack. As House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put it, “I do not question this man’s service to the country, but you know what, people have different philosophical beliefs.”

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Perhaps the best sign of the depth of the GOP pushback is that some of those who originally made the insinuation attempted to walk it back. Duffy tweeted a weak attempt at an explanation:

Similarly, Yoo felt compelled to tell the Washington Examiner’s Mike Brest: “I did not accuse Lt. Col. Vindman of committing the crime of espionage. I have tremendous respect for a decorated officer of the U.S. Army and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I was addressing was a report that Ukrainian officials had sought to contact Vindman for advice on how to handle Rudy Giuliani acting as a presidential envoy.”