Adviser in impeachment spotlight has only-in-America story

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Soviet-era immigrant who became a decorated soldier and later a White House aide is in the red-hot center of the House impeachment inquiry.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is a National Security Council adviser in the Trump White House. He testified Tuesday about his concerns that President Donald Trump and the European Union ambassador inappropriately pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

Vindman says it was his “sacred duty” to speak up.

He is a Jewish immigrant who fled Ukraine at the age of 3 in 1979. The country was then a Soviet republic.

Retired Brigadier Gen. Peter Zwack was the top Defense Department official for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Moscow during Vindman’s tenure there. He says Vindman is “utterly self-made.”