Democrats describe revised Gordon Sondland testimony as evidence of a ‘quid pro quo’
Donald Trump’s envoy to the EU has acknowledged linking military aid for Ukraine to a commitment by Kyiv to pursue investigations demanded by the US president, in what Democrats said was the most direct evidence to date of a presidential quid pro quo.
The disclosure by Gordon Sondland came in revised testimony to House of Representatives impeachment investigators, which was released on Tuesday along with a transcript of his appearance before Congress in a closed-door session on October 17.
Mr Sondland said in a sworn statement that he now recalled telling a Ukrainian official that “resumption of US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks”.
He said he was reminded of the conversation on September 1 with Andrey Yermak, a top adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian president, after reading of testimony given by William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, Mr Trump’s leading Russia adviser.
On Monday Mr Sondland’s lawyers sent Adam Schiff, the Democrat chairing thehouseintelligencecommitteeandde facto leader of the impeachment inquiry, a signed statement from the ambassador saying his “recollection about certain conversations in early September 2019” had been “refreshed”.
Other US officials who have testified before the impeachment inquiry have described how Mr Sondland and Mr Trump urged Mr Zelensky to publicly launch an investigation into Joe Biden, former US vice-president, and his son, Hunter Biden, who had held a board position at Burisma, a Ukrainian oil and gas company. Mr Trump also reportedly sought an investigation into alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Joe Biden is among the Democratic front-runners seeking to challenge Mr Trump as he seeks re-election in 2020. Mr Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said on Tuesday that Mr Sondland “testified under oath that there was indeed a quid pro quo arranged by the president to extort a foreign country into spreading universally-debunked lies” about the former vice-president.
“Donald Trump’s dangerous unfitness to serve as president has been obvious long before we learned of this, but the abuse of power he committed is unprecedented,” she added.
The congressional committees leading the impeachment inquiry also released a transcript of testimony from Kurt Volker, the former US envoy to Ukraine, and copies of text messages between Mr Volker and other US officials. The disclosures followed the publication on Monday of transcripts from closed-door sessions with Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, and Michael Mckinley, a former top aide to Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state.