Former Defense Department and CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash blasted a segment on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle as “absolutely despicable,” after host Laura Ingraham and her guest, legal professor John Yoo strongly suggested a Trump national security official, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, could be guilty of “espionage” after news broke that he plans to testify to Congress that he objected to improper White House political influence toward Ukraine.

Speaking with MSNBC’s The 11th Hour host Brian Williams, Bash reacted with disdain at Ingraham’s none-too-subtle damage control spin, which implied that the wounded combat veteran Vindman, who is a Ukrainian immigrant, could also be acting as a double agent for his native country. Ingraham and Yoo’s smears came just hours after a story first published by the New York Times on Monday night — and since confirmed elsewhere — revealed that Vindman, who was listening in on the infamous July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, twice raised his concerns about inappropriate White House political influence on Ukraine policy to the NSC’s top lawyer.

“Jeremy, you just raised the mob movie parlance: ‘How are they going to come after him?’ I’m glad you did,” Williams said, before playing the clip of Ingraham and Yoo attacking Vindman, a relatively unknown White House NSC official until the Times report. “It appears to be an opening salvo in character assassination and perhaps you can let us know what they’re talking about here.”

“I think they’re alleging the U.S. Army colonel is a traitor,” Bash said. “So here we have the followers of Donald Trump doing what I think is absolutely despicable, which is claiming that not only is he against Trump, but he’s un-American and I don’t think Republicans, Democrats, anybody who cares about our country, are going to stand for that.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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