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.
Tag: Gordon Sondland
Five bombshells from explosive Sondland testimony
Donald Trump’s hand-picked ambassador to the European Union appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where the latest witness in the Democrats’ impeachment investigation delivered hours of explosive testimony tying Trump directly to a politically motivated pressure campaign in Ukraine.
Gordon Sondland, a Republican mega-donor turned EU ambassador, had previously denied that Trump leveraged White House meetings and U.S. military aid in return for investigations into the president’s political rivals.
View the complete November 20 article by Mike Lillis and Scott Wong on The Hill website here.
Vice President Mike Pence’s office releases a statement calling Ambassador Gordon Sondland a liar — but only one of them is under oath
On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland, the current US Ambassador to the EU, provided an absolutely bombshell opening statement in his testimony to the House impeachment panel. Among the explosive new information he provided was a statement that he’s spoken directly to Vice President Mike Pence about Donald Trump’s marching orders in Ukraine. From Sondland’s opening statement:
There was a September 1 meeting with President Zelensky in Warsaw. Unfortunately, President Trump’s attendance at the Warsaw meeting was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian. Vice President Pence attended instead. I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations. I recall mentioning that before the Zelensky meeting.
During the actual meeting, President Zelensky raised the issue of security assistance directly with Vice President Pence. The Vice President said he would speak to President Trump about it.
In fact, when questioned by House counsel Daniel Goldman, Ambassador Sondland went further, making it clear Mike Pence knew exactly what the investigation was about, even if the Bidens weren’t specifically mentioned.
View the complete November 20 article by Jen Heyden from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.
Trump dismisses Sondland testimony, says impeachment inquiry should be ‘over’
President Trump on Wednesday said that he didn’t know U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland “very well” and that Sondland’s ongoing testimony Wednesday means that the House impeachment inquiry should be “over.”
Reading from a packet of notes, Trump reenacted a conversation he had with Sondland that was described in testimony, with the president saying he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine in exchange for investigations.
“That means it’s all over. What do you want from Ukraine, he asks me, screaming. What do you want from Ukraine? I keep seeing all these ideas and theories,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House for a trip to Austin, Texas, providing his account of Sondland’s part of the conversation.
View the complete November 20 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.
Sondland tells Congress he acted at Trump’s direction on Ukraine
Testimony from top ambassador ties Trump, Pompeo and other top officials to Ukrainian pressure campaign
Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on Wednesday told Congress that the president directed him to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and, in turn, former Vice President Joe Bidenand his son Hunter.
The Trump donor and appointee stressed that the president never directly told him U.S. military aid to Ukraine was contingent upon the politically motivated investigations. But he testified, among other new revelations, that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on a pressure campaign.
Buy-in of top administration officials was just one piece of new and conflicting pieces of information that emerged Wednesday at the House Intelligence Committee hearing.
View the complete November 20 article by Katherine Tully-McManus on The Roll Call website here.
Sondland acknowledges Ukraine quid pro quo, implicates Trump, Pence, Pompeo and others
A U.S. ambassador on Wednesday explicitly linked President Trump, Vice President Pence and other senior officials to what he came to believe was a campaign to pressure a foreign government to investigate Trump’s political rival in exchange for a coveted White House meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid.
The potentially historic, if hotly disputed, testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is the most damaging yet for Trump in Congress’s intensifying inquiry into whether the president should be impeached.
More forcefully than he has before, Sondland declared that the Trump administration would not give Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a chance to visit the White House — unless Zelensky agreed to announce investigations that could help the president politically.
Nunes blasted for nonsensical opening statement at impeachment hearing: ‘Seems unlikely’ GOP knew Sondland would affirm Trump’s ‘quid pro quo’
Rep. Devin Nunes of California has been one of President Donald Trump’s loudest, most strident defenders during the public impeachment hearings — and with Ambassador Gordon Sondland preparing to testify Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes was as bombastic as usual. During his opening statement, Nunes ranted about Democrats linking Trump to Russian interference in the 2016 election, insisted that Trump’s July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was perfectly innocent, declared that Sondland was “here today to be smeared” by Democrats, and even said that today’s Democrats would have impeached President George Washington if given the chance.
But Nunes’ critics have been pushing back on the congressman’s opening statements, noting that he plays hard and loose with the facts — and appeared unprepared for Sondland’s remarks.
On Wednesday morning, CNBC’s Christina Wilkie tweeted, “Nunes’ opening statement suggests Intel Republicans didn’t know (Ambassador) Sondland was flipping until the last minute, and Nunes didn’t have time to update his opening statement — to which Alex Thomas responded, “Yeah, the reaction I’m getting from everybody on the Hill right now is ‘Nunes read the wrong opening statement.’”
View the November 20 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.
Sondland Kept Pompeo Informed on Ukraine Pressure Campaign
The diplomat at the center of the impeachment inquiry looped in the secretary of state at key moments as American officials pushed for investigations sought by President Trump.
WASHINGTON — Gordon D. Sondland, the diplomat at the center of the House impeachment inquiry, kept Secretary of State Mike Pompeo apprised of key developments in the campaign to pressure Ukraine’s leader into public commitments that would satisfy President Trump, two people briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Sondland informed Mr. Pompeo in mid-August about a draft statement that Mr. Sondland and another American diplomat had worked on with the Ukrainians that they hoped would persuade Mr. Trump to grant Ukraine’s new president the Oval Office meeting he was seeking, the people said.
Later that month, Mr. Sondland discussed with Mr. Pompeo the possibility of pushing the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to pledge during a planned meeting with Mr. Trump in Warsaw that he would take the steps being sought by Mr. Trump as a way to break the logjam in relations between the two countries, the people said.
View the complete November 20 article by Michael S. Schmidt on The New York Times website here.
Russia could have monitored Trump’s call with Sondland, State Dept. official testified
David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with Gordon Sondland when the U.S. ambassador to the EU called Trump.
President Donald Trump’s call to the cell phone of a U.S. ambassador — a call that included a discussion of “investigations” Trump was asking Ukraine to launch into his Democratic rivals — was at risk of being monitored by Russia, a State Department official told House impeachment investigators.
David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland on July 26, when Sondland called Trump to discuss the probes. Holmes told members of the House Intelligence Committee that he “vividly” recalled the conversation because Trump’s voice was so loud and discernible, and the two spoke so openly about the investigations.
Holmes, the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, said it immediately made him nervous because two of the three mobile networks in Ukraine are Russian-owned.
Russia could have monitored Trump’s call with Sondland, State Dept. official testified
David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with Gordon Sondland when the U.S. ambassador to the EU called Trump.
President Donald Trump’s call to the cell phone of a U.S. ambassador — a call that included a discussion of “investigations” Trump was asking Ukraine to launch into his Democratic rivals — was at risk of being monitored by Russia, a State Department official told House impeachment investigators.
David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland on July 26, when Sondland called Trump to discuss the probes. Holmes told members of the House Intelligence Committee that he “vividly” recalled the conversation because Trump’s voice was so loud and discernible, and the two spoke so openly about the investigations.
Holmes, the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, said it immediately made him nervous because two of the three mobile networks in Ukraine are Russian-owned.