As I wrote just a few weeks ago, Eugene Vindman’s campaign for Congress here in Virginia seems deeply entangled in a growing web of ethical concerns. This week doesn’t bring a brand-new scandal, but it does extend—and arguably deepen—an already troubling pattern of behavior.
According to new reporting from The New York Post, the conservative watchdog group Americans for Public Trust has filed a formal campaign finance complaint against Eugene Vindman. This complaint doesn’t emerge from thin air—it follows previous reporting that Vindman’s campaign spent over $38,000 of donor money to purchase copies of a book written by his brother, Alex Vindman, the former Army officer turned impeachment witness and political commentator.
Alexander’s book promotes unconditional U.S. support for Ukraine, a position that Eugene Vindman has echoed repeatedly. But the issue here isn’t the policy—it’s the use of campaign funds to support what looks like a family business transaction.
What’s new in this complaint, and perhaps more revealing, is that on February 27, Eugene Vindman used his campaign’s email list to directly encourage supporters to purchase his brother’s book. That promotion “crosses the streams.” You can’t use your public campaign dollars to help someone else make private money.
This filing serves to highlight a drumbeat of questionable ethical decisions on the part of the Vindman campaign—and likewise with interrelated business dealings alongside his twin brother Alex Vindman.
Multiple Allegations Under Review
Let’s review a few of the other serious allegations—none of which have gone away:
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Taxpayer-Funded Travel: Eugene Vindman has reportedly taken 14 trips to Ukraine at taxpayer expense, trips that, by his own account, were used at least in part for “business development” for Trident Support, a defense contracting firm he co-owns with Alex. That same firm shares a P.O. Box with the Vindman campaign. It appears that the U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. has some questions about this matter
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SuperPac Coordination: The Vindman campaign faced credible charges of illegally colluding with an outside SuperPAC—VoteVets—to provide communication services to the 2024 campaign. VoteVets—which has paid his brother Alexander’s LLC over $100,000 for “strategic management consulting” seemed to serve as a crisis communication firm for the campaign, as the campaign explicitly referred questions to VoteVets. This would appear to be a quite blatant provision of coordinated services to the campaign, which a SuperPAC cannot do (well, not legally anyway).
Now sure, none of these are felony murder charges. But taken together, they paint a picture of a campaign operating on the edge of legality—and at the very least—taking shortcuts and pushing the envelope. As we used to say in the Army, this shows a “pattern of misconduct.”
If this is what the campaign looks like, what is going on behind doors in the congressional office?