Politico reports:

A former senior ethics official and lawyer on the National Security Council has filed a complaint with a Pentagon watchdog raising concerns that he was retaliated against for reporting that the national security adviser and his chief of staff “committed several ethics and legal compliance violations” late last year and into 2020.

Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, the twin brother of impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Ret.), filed the complaint on August 18, according to his attorneys and a letter leading Democrats on four House committees sent to the Defense Department’s acting inspector general on Wednesday. (Alexander Vindman retired from the military last month following what he described as “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation.”)

The letter — signed by House Oversight chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, Armed Services chairman Adam Smith, and Subcommittee on National Security chairman Stephen Lynch — called for the acting inspector general, Sean O’Donnell, to launch an investigation into Yevgeny Vindman’s claims. It quotes from a memo Vindman sent to the Pentagon’s general counsel on March 6, weeks after he and his brother were transferred out early from the NSC.

“During the fall of 2019 to February 2020, I became aware of legal compliance and ethics violations involving Robert O’Brien, Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor (NSA) and Alex Gray, Deputy Assistant to the President (DAP) and National Security Council (NSC) Chief of Staff (CoS),” the memo reads, according to the Democrats’ letter. “Specifically, there were allegations of sexism, violations of standards of ethical conduct for employees and violations of the Anti-Deficiency Act.”

The letter, which requests a response from O’Donnell by Sept. 1, did not include the full inspector general complaint because the complaint names specific women who made the allegations and the panels want to keep their identities private, two people familiar with the matter said.

But Vindman’s attorneys, Mark Zaid, Andrew Bakaj, Brad Moss and Eugene Fidell, confirmed that he filed, through counsel, a whistleblower reprisal complaint with O’Donnell’s office. “Lt. Col. Vindman’s complaint states that senior White House officials, to include the president, retaliated against him for performing his duty as an attorney and Soldier,” the lawyers’ statement reads. [Continue reading…]