Sondland says he told Pence that Ukraine military aid appeared conditioned on political investigations

Washington Post logoVice President Pence was informed just before meeting with the president of Ukraine in September that a U.S. ambassador believed that stalled military aid to Ukraine probably would not be released until Ukraine agreed to announce political investigations sought by President Trump, the envoy testified Wednesday.

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told the House Intelligence Committee that he informed Pence of his fears just before the vice president met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Warsaw on Sept. 1, a meeting where Sondland anticipated that Zelensky was likely to ask about frozen U.S. aid.

The testimony is the first indication that Pence may have known that congressionally appropriated funds for security assistance were conditioned on a foreign power agreeing to open investigations to assist Trump’s political prospects. The Ukrainians were being pressured to announce probes into Burisma, a gas company that hired former vice president Joe Biden’s son, and a debunked assertion that their country interfered in the 2016 campaign, according to congressional testimony and text messages.

View the complete November 20 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.