When the House shelved a resolution on impeachment proceedings for President Donald Trump, only 79 Democrats tried to keep the fight going. Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Woodbridge Democrat involved in the first impeachment of Trump, wasn’t among them.
A resolution (HRes 537) by Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat, sought to impeach the commander-in-chief for usurping Congress to effectively declare war on Iran. But Vindman joined with 128 Democratic representatives, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and every member of Virginia’s congressional delegation, in voting to table a resolution.
But it’s especially notable that Vindman did not want to move forward, considering the role he played in Congress impeaching Trump in 2019. It was Vindman’s twin brother, Alexander Vindman, who in his role with the National Security Council was listening to the phone call where Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, the Democrat who would defeat Trump’s re-election effort in 2020, and his son Hunter Biden.
Eugene Vindman encouraged his brother to report the call up the chain of command. Shortly after, Eugene Vindman was demoted from his own post with the National Security Council. He later heavily criticized Trump as he ran for a competitive seat in Congress, which he won in November.
But he hasn’t explained why he would vote to table an impeachment resolution now. Southeast Politics reached out last week about his vote and has not heard back.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which lists Vindman among Democratic incumbents the GOP caucus will target in the 2026 Midterms, offered an explanation: cowardice.
“Eugene Vindman is a fraud and a coward, and voting to table the motion to impeach puts it on full display,” said NRCC spokesperson Maureen O’Toole. “Vindman isn’t in Congress to fight for Virginians; he’s in Congress to fight his own petty battles and enrich himself and his family. Frankly, he’s a disgrace.”
Of course, the NRCC doesn’t believe Trump should be impeached, but does see hypocrisy in Vindman’s vote compared to his rhetoric. A fundraising email sent out nine days before Vindman’s vote on the impeachment resolution said, “Trump’s unchecked power is destroying our democracy.” On MSNBC, he called Trump a “mad king.” On social media, Vindman said Trump “kowtows to dictators” and called the President’s current National Security team “criminal.”
But while he has engaged in a level of polemic rhetoric, he also shied away from discussing impeachment on the campaign trail, as noted by The Washington Post, even as his Republican opponent Derrick Anderson frequently brought up Vindman’s involvement in the first articles brought against the President.
His campaign last year did paint the Vindman brothers as targets of retribution.
“Because we did not let Trump’s abuse of his office stand, he was impeached — and his vengeance cost us our careers when we were fired in retaliation,” read one fundraising email, which was sent before he won the Democratic nomination. But the Post reported Vindman avoided the topic in the buildup to the General Election.
It will surely come up again this year, both as Vindman seeks re-election and his brother potentially runs for a Senate seat in Florida.
