Gordon Sondland to break with Trump in impeachment testimony
October 17, 2019Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, plans to break sharply with President Donald Trump on Thursday, telling House impeachment investigators that he opposed the president’s request to run Ukraine policy through his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“We were also disappointed by the president’s direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland will tell congressional investigators, according to his opening statement, which was obtained by POLITICO.
Sondland said he contacted Giuliani anyway at Trump’s direction, and that Giuliani drew a direct link between scheduling a White House visit for Ukraine’s newly elected president and demands that Ukraine prioritize an investigation involving former Vice President Joe Biden as well as one connected to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anti-corruption investigatory topics of importance for the president,” Sondland will say. Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
But Sondland added that he did not realize “until much later” that Giuliani was seeking a Ukrainian-led investigation into Biden and his son. And he said any effort to solicit foreign assistance in an American election “would be wrong.”
He also said military assistance to Ukraine “should not have been delayed for any reason,” but added that Trump repeatedly told him there was “no quid pro quo” involving the aid and an investigation of Trump’s political rivals.
Sondland’s testimony has the potential to be the most devastating yet for Trump’s defenders, who say he did not apply inappropriate pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a 2020 rival. It was Sondland’s text messages denying the existence of a quid pro quo, obtained by Congress earlier this month, that Trump pointed to as proof he did nothing untoward.
The House’s impeachment inquiry has centered on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, during which Trump asked his counterpart for a “favor.” Democrats have pointed to the request as evidence that Trump abused the power of his office.
The inquiry also focuses on the decision to freeze critical military assistance to Ukraine. House impeachment investigators are looking into whether Trump sought to use the withheld aid as leverage over Zelensky as the president sought probes into his political enemies.
Sondland’s attorneys in a letter to House investigators say he has ample documentation to back up his testimony but that the White House and State Department are blocking him from sharing it, claiming it could implicate executive privilege and other confidentiality restrictions.
“[Sondland] strongly believes that disclosure will lead to a more fulsome and accurate inquiry into the matters at issue and will corroborate the testimony that he will give in key respects,” Sondland’s attorneys wrote in a Thursday letter. “However, the choice is not his to make, and so we must regretfully decline to produce the documents that the committees have requested from Ambassador Sondland.”
Sondland now says he only claimed there was no quid pro quo because Trump repeatedly assured him of it in a direct phone call — regardless of whether it was true.
“And I recall the president was in a bad mood,” Sondland intends to say.
Sondland will also offer a strong defense of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted by Trump after a campaign by the president’s allies to recall her to Washington. Trump himself blasted Yovanovitch during his July 25 call Zelensky, and Yovanovitch testified to lawmakers last week that her removal was based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Source: https://www.politico.com/