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A watchdog group alleges Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., used campaign resources to promote the book by his brother Alexander Vindman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who became famous during the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Americans for Public Trust, a conservative-leaning group, filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against the first-term House member on Monday.
The complaint cites instances after Vindman already won his House seat. In February and March of this year, Vindman’s still-existent campaign committee known as Vindman for Congress promoted the Alexander Vindman book, “The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine,” the complaint says.
“It is clearly illegal to use campaign resources for personal use, and that is just what Rep. Vindman has done,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said in a public statement.
“Rep. Vindman misused campaign resources to help promote his brother’s book all the way to the New York Times bestseller list,” Sutherland said. “The tens of thousands of campaign dollars spent to subsidize his brother’s spurious book should be immediately investigated by the FEC.”
Vindman won his U.S. House seat for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in the 2024 election, defeating Republican Derrick Anderson.
Spokespersons for Vindman’s office did not respond to three email inquiries and one phone message for this story from Tuesday and Wednesday.
Alexander Vindman was a member of the White House National Security Council during the first Trump administration, and was a Democrat witness in the first Trump impeachment hearing regarding the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019.
The complaint says that on Feb. 27, the Vindman for Congress campaign committee sent a fundraising email that promoted the book, “The Folly of Realism.”
The complaint says that on March 7 the campaign sent another fundraising email promoting the book. The bulk of this email’s copy was written by Alexander Vindman promoting his book, according to Americans for Public Trust.
Rep. Eugene Vindman’s quarterly report to the FEC disclosed that the campaign spent $30,972.97 and $7,809.55 for “fundraising expense[s]” at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida, according to the complaint.
The Americans for Public Trust complaint to the FEC says the dates of those expenses at the bookstore resemble X posts about Alexander Vindman’s book signing events at Books & Books.
Americans for Public Trust contends that the FEC has recognized that political committees’ mailings list as assets with value. Thus, the watchdog group says the use of campaign assets to promote a book is a “prohibited personal use.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
