It wasn't just Hunter Biden doing questionable business with Ukraine

Pentagon wants ethics inquiry on Rep. Vindman’s Ukraine business deals

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Pentagon is raising questions about Vindman’s private business efforts in Ukraine while he worked on a State Department-funded project

The Department of War is calling for an ethics inquiry into Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., over business deals he and his brother — retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — struck in Ukraine while Eugene was simultaneously part of a State Department-funded inquiry into Russian atrocities in Ukraine. 

The Pentagon's General Counsel Earl Matthews sent the November letter to House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., as well as to the leaders of the House Armed Services and Oversight Committees.

The letters urged an ethics-related inquiry into the efforts undertaken by Eugene — elected to Congress in 2024 — and by his brother Alexander as the brothers each worked with U.S. defense companies and the Ukrainian government to pursue potentially lucrative contracts in the war-torn country at the same time as Eugene was also being funded by the State Department for Russian war crimes work in Ukraine.

Rep. Vindman's authorized biography says that "On July 25, 2019, Eugene's twin brother, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who also served on the NSC, listened in on President Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky," during which time Vindman claimed that "Trump attempted to extort Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. Alex reported the call to Eugene, and together they reported it up the chain of command. Trump was impeached for this attack on democracy but was never held accountable. Two days after he was acquitted by the Senate, he fired Alex and Eugene from the White House."

Brothers sought to perform services for Ukrainian government, Pentagon says

“They founded their company to perform services for the Ukrainian government in exchange for money and to represent American companies seeking to do business with the Ukrainian government for money,” Matthews wrote in his ethics letter. “They were required to seek the pre-approval of the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of State.”

Matthews added: “As retired U.S. Army officers, just as they could not become direct civil employees of the Ukrainian government without obtaining the prior approval of both the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of State, they could also not lawfully provide ‘consulting’ or ‘defense services’ through their ‘consulting firm’ to the Ukrainian government without first obtaining the permission of the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of State. If any U.S. military retiree could simply form a ‘consulting firm’ and immediately start providing services to a foreign government without the required Secretarial approvals, it would make a mockery of the law.”