Quid pro quo? Gordon Sondland says yes
‘Everyone was in the loop’
They called him the “Gordon problem” – and now he’s a giant problem for President Donald Trump.
Gordon Sondland dropped a bomb into the impeachment inquiry when he said Trump personally directed the improper plan to force Ukraine to open investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden and a discredited conspiracy theory about the 2016 election.
The
Trump megadonorturned-ambassador to the European Union told congressional impeachment investigators that Trump ordered him to operate under the direction of presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who insisted that Ukraine would not get any support from the U.S. unless it agreed to launch the investigations.
Sondland also implicated the entire senior Trump team in the improper actions, from Vice President Mike Pence on down, including Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said in his opening statement.
Other witnesses insist they had little if any direct contact with Trump. Sondland has already testified that he was Trump’s point man on bullying Ukraine in to getting valuable political dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Sondland spoke to Trump be
fore passing on the message that there was “no quid pro quo” – even though there was. He also created a controversy at a meeting with top Ukrainian officials and American officials when he directly brought up investigations of the gas company that Hunter Biden sat on the board of and the crackpot theory that Ukraine and not Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
And of course, Sondland took a call from Trump on his cell phone in a crowded Kyiv restaurant the
day after Trump’s own infamous call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Sondland never mentioned that explosive call at his earlier closeddoor testimony and he didn’t mention his comments afterward that Trump only cared about politically benefits for himself, not Ukraine.
When it comes to Rudy Giuliani, Sondland left little room for doubt.
He worked with Rudy because Trump told him to do so.
“I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States,” Sondland said
in his opening statement.
“We did not want to work with him,” Sondland said. “We played the hand we were dealt.”
“We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders,” Sondland added.
Trump often told aides to “talk to Rudy” about Ukraine, apparently because he trusted his personal lawyer to spearhead his effort to force Ukraine to launch the investigations into Democrats that he wanted.