Eugene Vindman will seek the Democratic Party nomination in the Seventh District, the seat currently held by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is not running for re-election as she prepares a run for governor.
Eugene Vindman, a retired Army colonel, is a former senior White House ethics official, and the twin brother of Lt Col. Alexander Vindman, who reached out to Eugene in 2019 to inform his brother that then-President Donald Trump had threatened to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigated his political rival.
Alex and Eugene reported the call up the chain of command, and the result was President Trump’s first impeachment.
“Soldiers are trained to run towards fire, no matter the personal cost. That’s why I’m running for Congress – to defend our nation against the clear and present danger of Donald Trump and the 147 members of Congress who voted to overthrow the will of the American people. We need leaders with honesty, experience, and judgment,” Eugene Vindman said in a statement released by his campaign on Thursday.
Vindman served in the Army for 25 years as a paratrooper, an infantryman, and a JAG Corps attorney for U.S. Forces-Iraq. In 2018, he was assigned to the National Security Council in the White House, where he became the senior ethics official.
He was born to a Jewish family in Soviet Ukraine during the height of the Cold War. When his mother died of cancer, his father decided to leave their homeland, and after a six-month journey, they arrived in Brooklyn on Christmas Eve in 1979, with $759.
Vindman’s father earned $20 a day moving furniture while teaching himself English.
All of his sons would go on to serve in uniform, which Eugene calls “a good return on America’s investment in my family.”
Vindman graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton, earned a master’s degree at Central Michigan, a law degree at the University of Georgia, and a master’s in law from the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School.
Eugene and his wife, Cindy, live in Dale City, and have two children, Max and Madi.
“I want America to remain the land of opportunity, a refuge for families like mine, where hard work makes a difference, truth prevails, rights are protected, and we are all free to be who we are and pursue our dreams. I want the next generation to have all the opportunities Cindy and I had, beginning with good, safe schools preparing them for jobs in a flourishing economy,” Vindman said.
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Chris Graham
