(CNN) Freed from the yoke of impeachment, President Donald Trump did what he does best on Friday night: Exacted revenge on his enemies.

In this case, his "enemies" were a decorated military veteran and longtime national security staffer named Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and Gordon Sondland, a major donor to the President's inaugural committee who was rewarded for that contribution with an ambassadorship.

Trump unceremoniously fired both men just 48 hours after he had been acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate on both articles that the Democratic majority in the House had impeached him on in December 2019.

Their crime? Disloyalty, in the eyes of Trump. Both Vindman, a member of the National Security Council, and Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, had testified under subpoena in the House impeachment inquiry. And both men had made clear they had concerns about the way in which Trump acted in his interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- specifically during a July 25, 2019, phone call between the two men. (Vindman's twin brother, Yevgeny, was also dismissed Friday, although he played no role in the Ukraine investigations.)

Vindman testified to House investigators that he was immediately concerned with what seemed, from his perspective, to be Trump seeking to use the power of the presidency, and the potential promise of a White House visit for Zelensky, to pressure the Ukrainians to announce an investigation into former vice president and 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Vindman testified that he alerted his superiors to his concern soon after the call ended.

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