Tag: Gordon Sondland

Key impeachment witness Gordon Sondland sues Mike Pompeo and U.S. for $1.8 million in legal fees

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President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million to compensate for legal fees incurred during the 2019 House impeachment probe.

The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia, alleges that Pompeo reneged on his promise that the State Department would cover the fees after Sondland delivered bombshell testimony accusing Trump and his aides of pressuring the government of Ukraine to investigate then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid.

Sondland, a Portland hotel magnate appointed by Trump to serve as ambassador, became a key witness of the impeachment probe because of his firsthand knowledge of conversations with Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani and senior Ukrainian officials — as well as his punchy answers, affable demeanor and colorful language. Continue reading.

Impeachment witnesses ousted amid fears of Trump revenge campaign

The removal of Vindman and Sondland came after a promise of “payback” by White House officials.

The purge of impeachment witnesses has begun.

Within hours of each other, President Donald Trump and the White House removed two of the most crucial witnesses against the president in the investigation that led to his impeachment for abuse of power.

Late Friday, news emerged that Trump had ordered the recall of Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union — “effective immediately,” the ambassador noted in a statement. Hours earlier, the White House escorted out Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine policy officer on the National Security Counsel — along with his twin brother Yevgeny, who was not an impeachment witness. Continue reading.

Trump ousts impeachment witness Gordon Sondland

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday ousted Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, making him the second official of the day who testified in the House impeachment inquiry to be dismissed.

“I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Sondland said in a statement.

“I am proud of our accomplishments,” Sondland added, thanking Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Our work here has been the highlight of my career.” Continue reading.

Legal scholar calls Sondland testimony ‘most chilling’ evidence Trump used power of office for private ‘political benefit’

AlterNet logoStanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan on Wednesday told House impeachment investigators that the “most chilling” evidence that President Donald Trump was pursuing his own political gain in Ukraine came from the November 20 testimony of Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.

Karlan, one of four legal scholars to testify during Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing, said she spent her entire Thanksgiving break reading transcripts from previous public impeachment hearings in the House Intelligence Committee.

The “most striking” line from the witness testimony, said Karlan, was Sondland’s claim that Trump did not care whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky actually opened an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.

Continue reading

3 women say they were subjected to sexual harassment by Gordon Sondland — and faced professional retaliation after rejecting him

AlterNet logoThree women say they faced sexual misconduct by Gordon Sondland before he was the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and at the center of the presidential impeachment inquiry. They say he retaliated against them professionally after they rejected his advances.

In one case, a potential business partner recalls that Sondland took her to tour a room in a hotel he owns, only to then grab her face and try to kiss her. After she rejected him, Sondland backtracked on investing in her business.

Another woman, a work associate at the time, says Sondland exposed himself to her during a business interaction. She also recalls falling over the back of a couch trying to get away from him. After she made her lack of interest clear, she says Sondland called her, screaming about her job performance.

View the complete November 27 article by Julia Silverman, Kelly Clarke and Fiona McCann along with Maryam Jameel and Doris Burke  from ProPublica on the AlterNet website here.

Witness testimony and records raise questions about account of Trump’s ‘no quid pro quo’ call

Washington Post logoPresident Trump was cranky when they spoke on the phone in September, Ambassador Gordon Sondland told members of Congress, but his words were clear: Trump wanted no quid pro quo with Ukraine.

“This is Ambassador Sondland speaking to me,” Trump said outside the White House last week, looking down to read notes he’d taken of Sondland’s testimony. “Here’s my response that he just gave: ‘I want nothing. . . . I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.’ ”

Sondland’s recollection of a phone conversation that he said took place on Sept. 9 has emerged as a centerpiece of Trump’s defense as House Democrats argue in an impeachment inquiry that he abused his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats.

View the complete November 27 article by Aaron C. Devis, Elise Viebeck and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Fox News has created an ‘alternative reality’ to spin even damning testimony against Trump: report

AlterNet logoAfter Wednesday’s testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, CNN and MSNBC were full of legal and political analysts who found Sondland’s testimony to be terrible for the president. But Fox News, a report by Media Matters’ Matt Gertz demonstrates, generally had very different coverage of Wednesday’s hearing — coverage that was overtly favorable to Trump and his allies.

Not everyone at Fox News has been consistently critical of the impeachment inquiry: Judge Andrew Napolitano (a legal analyst at Fox) and Chris Wallace, despite their conservative leanings, have not hesitated to be critical of Trump at times. But Gertz’ report shows a major contrast between how CNN covered Wednesday’s hearing and how most at Fox News covered it.

The impeachment witnesses on Wednesday, Gertz notes, included not only Sondland, but also, Laura Cooper (a U.S. Defense Department expert on Russia and Ukraine) and the U.S. State Department’s David Hale. Cooper, Gertz points out, testified that as early as July 25, Ukrainian officials were inquiring about a hold being placed on U.S. aid to Ukraine — and Sondland, Gertz explains, testified earlier “that he had, at the president’s behest and with the knowledge of senior members of his administration, pressured the Ukrainians to publicly commit to investigating former Vice President Joe Biden as well as the conspiracy theory that Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 presidential election.”

View the complete November 21 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Impeachment hearings live updates: Hill said she told Sondland that his efforts in Ukraine would ‘blow up’

Washington Post logoFormer White House adviser Fiona Hill testified Thursday that she had warned Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that his efforts in Ukraine on behalf of President Trump would “blow up.”

Hill, a Russia expert who reported directly to John Bolton when he was national security adviser, was testifying alongside David Holmes, a top staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the impeachment inquiry.

Democrats are seeking information to bolster the case that Trump sought to leverage U.S. military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky in exchange for investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, among others.

View the complete November 21 article by John Wagner and Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Sondland’s bombshell testimony leaves Trump’s Republican allies scrambling

Washington Post logoThe White House and President Trump’s allies scrambled on Wednesday to contain the damage from new allegations from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, whose testimony in front of impeachment investigators detailed an explicit “quid pro quo” with Ukraine at Trump’s ultimate directive.

The bombshell testimony from Sondland alleging that the president attempted to leverage an invite for Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky in exchange for an investigation into his political opponents forced the White House, which was not aware of his testimony in advance, to quickly recalibrate its defense of the president’s actions.

Administration officials immediately sought to emphasize that Sondland was relying in part on his own presumptions based on conversations with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — an argument echoed by GOP lawmakers later Wednesday — and that Trump himself never personally told Sondland about preconditioning $400 million in military aid to Ukraine or a coveted White House visit on the probes.

View the complete November 20 article by Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey and Kayla Epstein on The Washington Post website here.

In an Echo of Watergate and John Dean, an Adviser Points to Trump

New York Times logoTestimony by Gordon D. Sondland gave Democrats the crisp, accusatory lines they sought. But Republicans elicited an account of one conversation that they hope will help exonerate President Trump.

WASHINGTON — Gordon D. Sondland had not even finished his testimony on Wednesday before it was being called the “John Dean moment” of the President Trump impeachment drama. With the presidency on the line, a once-trusted lieutenant pointed the finger at Mr. Trump in a proceeding that could lead to Watergate-style charges of high crimes and misdemeanors.

For the first time, Mr. Trump’s critics got the sort of viral moments they have craved, crisp accusatory cancer-on-the-presidency lines uttered on camera that can now be played over and over again on social media and cable television, making clear just who was in charge of the campaign to pressure a foreign power to help bring down the president’s domestic political rivals.

“We followed the president’s orders.”

View the complete November 20 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.