“It turned out that what he reported was very different,” Trump said. “And also when you look at the person he reports to, said horrible things, avoided the chain of command, leaked, did a lot of bad things. And so we sent him on his way to a much different location, and the military can handle him anyway they want.”

One of Vindman's lawyers, David Pressman, said last Friday that his ouster from the NSC was clear political retribution for his role in the impeachment inquiry. "There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House," Pressman said in a statement shared with reporters.

"The truth has cost LTC Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy," Pressman said.

While Trump on Tuesday expressed his anger at the Vindmans, other officials have portrayed their removal from the White House.

An Army spokesperson on Friday said that the Vindman brothers had simply been reassigned to the Department of the Army. On Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted that the Vindman brothers "just got relocated," while also hinting that additional officials could be forced out of their roles.

And in an interview with Cheddar on Tuesday, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Vindman was scheduled to come back to the Army in May after completing his detail assignment to the NSC. He said Vindman will be sent to Senior Service College, where he will "learn how to take on greater responsibility and strategic leadership."

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"So, he's coming back a couple months early, and he's going to be at the headquarters Department of the Army, and then we'll send him off to War College this summer," McCarthy said when asked about his reaction to Vindman being escorted out of the White House on Friday. "All these detailees come back and forth pretty regularly, so it's just a few months early, and we'll get him back into the force."

Last Friday, Trump also ordered the recall of Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, “effective immediately."

The series of personnel moves have been seen as an act of retaliation, coming amid calls for “payback” by the White House against those who played a role in Trump’s impeachment, an investigation the president called "evil" upon his acquittal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called on every agency inspector general to investigate potential retaliation against whistleblowers. And in a letter to Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general at the Defense Department, Schumer described the ousters as "part of a dangerous, growing pattern of retaliation against those who report wrongdoing only to find themselves targeted by the President and subject to his wrath and vindictiveness.”