Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) reiterated that it was “inappropriate” for Trump to pressure Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family. But he said he also still hasn’t seen “anything that rises to the level of being an impeachable offense.”

Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, delivered the biggest bombshell in the House’s public impeachment hearings when he testified, “the answer is yes,” there was a quid pro quo. Sondland said that Trump conditioned a White House meeting with Zelenksy on his willingness to investigate the president’s political rivals and broadly implicated senior White House officials.

But Sondland also acknowledged that he never heard from Trump directly to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine — something the president’s defenders are already highlighting.

“They’re having a hard time with firsthand knowledge of any of this,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “My biggest problem with the whole thing is it’s like an armed robbery without a weapon, without product that’s been stolen, without a victim that’s claimed to have been robbed.”

“I don’t know how you can say there was a quid pro quo when the aid was delivered and there wasn’t an investigation,” added Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas.).

Even before Sondland’s latest remarks, some Republicans had shifted course.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has previously said that he'd have concerns if Trump did in fact engage in a quid pro quo. But he said this month that the administration was “incapable” of forming a quid pro quo because its Ukraine policy was “incoherent.”

Republicans also raised questions with Sondland’s credibility, after drastically altering his closed-door testimony. Sondland told impeachment investigators after his deposition that he told a top Ukrainian official hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid would likely be held up unless investigations into Trump’s political rivals were announced — a major reversal.

“He’s muddled it because he’s had multiple positions now,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) “I think that’s going to make it a little more challenging in terms of the acceptance of what he has to say. He’s had inconsistent statements in the past.”

Still, Senate Republicans declined to directly attack Sondland, and several said they planned to review his remarks.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), when told about Sondland’s testimony, said, “That sounds like a hard quid pro quo.”

“That’s the firmest anybody could say about that categorization of it,” Isakson said. “To my knowledge, everything that was said before was a soft quid pro quo.”