Sondland: Trump ordered quid pro quo
Ambassador says four other top White House officials were involved
Gordon Sondland’s third time was a charm — and a disaster for President Donald Trump.
The ambassador to the European Union finally got to the heart of the matter as he appeared in the impeachment inquiry for a third time Wednesday, declaring that Trump personally orchestrated a quid pro quo plot for Ukrainian investigations and had several Cabinet members “in the loop” to do the dirty work.
Sondland’s nationally televised testimony dealt the most decisive impeachment blow yet to Trump and implicated Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in the bid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into announcing investigations of Joe Biden’s family and other Democrats before the 2020 election.
The EU envoy — who was handpicked for his post by Trump after donating $1 million to his inaugural committee — dropped a bomb off the bat by delivering an opening statement confirming there was “a quid pro quo” catch in the Ukraine scandal.
The catch, Sondland explained, was that Trump wouldn’t meet with Zelenskiy at the White House unless the Ukrainian leader publicly committed to opening one investigation into Burisma — a Ukrainian gas company on whose board Biden’s son, Hunter, once sat — and another one into debunked rightwing claims that anti-Trump Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 election.
These preconditions were mostly relayed by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, said Sondland, who appeared relaxed despite the high-stakes hearing, smiling, laughing and even cracking a few jokes.
But it was clear, Sondland said, that the directives ultimately came from the top.
“Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president,” Sondland said in the sworn appearance. “(We) worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the president.”
Dubbed the “Three Amigos,” Sondland said he, Perry and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker “followed the president’s orders” to “talk to Rudy” and press Ukraine to launch the investigations.
But Sondland stressed he carried out the mission reluctantly.
“We weren’t happy ... We did not want to involve Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland testified. “I believed then, as I do now, that the men and women of the State Department, not the president’s personal lawyer, should take responsibility for Ukraine matters.”
He added, “We did not want to work with him ... We played the hand we were dealt.”
Democrats and Republicans alike noted that Wednesday marked Sondland’s third time revising his testimony and that, for each time, his account has grown remarkably more explosive.
“All due respect, sir, we appreciate your candor, but let’s be really clear on what it took to get it out of you,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y.
Still, Sondland on Wednesday provided impeachment investigators with indisputable evidence, including a string of emails confirming he kept Pompeo, Mulvaney and several State Department officials updated on his progress in Ukraine. He also testified he expressed concerns about the Ukraine scheme to Pence.
In one email, Pompeo said Sondland was “doing great work” in the push for Ukrainian investigations and urged him to keep “banging away.”
“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said. “It was no secret.”
Trump waved off the substance of Sondland’s testimony and insisted he doesn’t know the ambassador “very well,” even though he took a massive political donation from him in 2016 and called him a “great American” last month.
“I have not spoken to him much. This is not a man I know well. He seems like a nice guy, though,” Trump told reporters at the White House after reading from crudely written crib notes spelling out in Sharpie, “I WANT
NOTHING” and “I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO.”
After Sondland wrapped up nearly six hours of testimony, Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official overseeing Ukraine policy, and David Hale, a senior State Department official, were grilled in the inquiry.
In an unexpected revelation, Cooper testified her staffers recently told her they received emails showing Ukrainians were inquiring on July 25 about the Trump administration’s “hold” on $391 million in military aid — the same day the president infamously pressed Zelenskiy over the phone for investigations.
Cooper’s testimony blows a hole in the White House defense that there couldn’t have been quid pro quo involving the aid because Ukraine supposedly didn’t find out about the cash freeze until late August.
In Sondland’s testimony, things got more thorny when the conversation turned to the military aid.
Sondland said he repeatedly inquired about why the aid was withheld on July 18 but never got “a clear answer.”
“I came to the conclusion that the aid, like the White House visit, was jeopardized” and part of the “quid pro quo,” Sondland testified.
Republicans seized on Sondland’s lack of firsthand knowledge, claiming it proved their case that the impeachment inquiry is a partisan “hoax.”
“You do not have any evidence that the president of the United States was tied to withholding aid from Ukraine in exchange for investigations,” Ohio Rep. Mike Turner said.
Pence’s office, meanwhile, pushed back against Sondland’s claim that he voiced concern to the vice president about the frozen military cash during a Sept. 1 trip to Poland.
“This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened,” Pence chief of staff Marc Short said.
Democrats pointed out that the only people who could solve the aid freeze mystery have been blocked by Trump from testifying.
“Both of those political appointees have been subpoenaed to testify and have refused,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said, referring to White House Office of Management and Budget acting director Russell Vought and Michael Duffey, a national security programs director at OMB.
Moreover, Mulvaney, who has likewise refused to testify under oath, explicitly admitted in a bizarre White House briefing last month that the aid was held up in an attempt to coax Ukraine into launching Trump’s desired investigations, saying such setups happen “all the time with foreign policy.” Mulvaney later tried to walk back the remark.