Sondland: 'Everyone was in the loop,' ambassador says about high-level efforts to pressure Ukraine

Deirdre Shesgreen | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Sondland: Giuliani requested quid pro quo for Pres. Trump Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified about allegations that President Trump pressured Ukraine to open investigations for personal political gain.

WASHINGTON – Gordon Sondland was President Donald Trump’s go-to guy on Ukraine. On Wednesday, he became the House Democrats’ most consequential impeachment witness – providing dramatic testimony of a “quid pro quo” and implicating top White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"Everyone was in the loop," Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the European Union, declared in his opening remarks before the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the impeachment probe.

Sondland said he worked with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, at "the express direction of the president" to pressure Ukrainian officials to open two politically motivated investigations.

Multiple witnesses have testified that Trump wanted Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to announce two investigations: one into a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election and a second involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma.

"Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president," Sondland, a wealthy hotelier who snagged the plum EU ambassadorship after donating $1 million to the president's inaugural committee, said Wednesday.

"So we followed the president’s orders."

Read the full text: Gordon Sondland's opening statement in impeachment hearing

Sondland said the Ukraine effort was not a rogue shadow foreign policy operation, as other witnesses portrayed it, but rather authorized and supported at the highest levels inside the Trump administration.

"We kept the leadership of the State Department and the NSC (National Security Council) informed of our activities," Sondland said.

That leadership, he said, included Pompeo; his top State Department attorney, Ulrich Brechbuhl; and his executive secretary Lisa Kenna, as well as John Bolton, who was Trump's national security adviser.

"They knew what we were doing and why," the EU ambassador said.

Sondland's testimony marked the most dramatic moment yet in the unfolding impeachment proceedings. A longtime Republican donor, Sondland was seen as a Trump loyalist – someone with direct access to the president and a diplomat who operated outside the State Department's cadre of career professionals.

'Seminal moment in our investigation'

Trump and GOP lawmakers have derided other State Department witnesses as "never Trumpers" hostile to the president's unconventional approach foreign policy. They could not say that about Sondland, who said he has talked to Trump about 20 times since he became ambassador in June 2018.

"This is a seminal moment in our investigation," Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said after Sondland's testimony concluded. Even before Sondland wrapped up, Schiff said the diplomat's account “goes right to the heart of the issue of bribery, as well as other potential high crimes or misdemeanors.”

Sondland said there was a clear "quid pro quo" in Giuliani's demands, which he said came from Trump: Zelensky would have to announce the investigation into Joe Biden, one of Trump's political rivals, as well as the probe into alleged Ukrainian election meddling. In exchange, Zelensky would get a coveted meeting with Trump at the White House.

Sondland admits Trump benefits from Biden probe Near the end of Wednesday's first impeachment hearing, Ambassador Gordon Sondland clashed with New York Rep. Sean Maloney about who would benefit from a Ukraine investigation of the Bidens. Sondland's reticent answer: President Donald Trump. (Nov. 20)

Sondland also said he came to understand that U.S. military aid to Ukraine, needed to help the budding democracy counter Russian aggression, was probably being held up as leverage over Zelensky. Under Republican questioning, Sondland said neither Trump nor Giuliani ever made that direct link to him.

Sondland's testimony threw official Washington into a frenzy, with Pence, Pompeo and others issuing carefully worded rebuttals.

During a news conference in Brussels, Pompeo initially said he couldn't comment on Sondland's account because he hadn't had time to watch Wednesday's hearing.

"I was in meetings all day and haven’t had a chance to see any of that testimony," Pompeo told reporters after attending NATO meetings and other events in Belgium.

Several hours later, the State Department's spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, issued a statement disputing Sondland's testimony.

"Gordon Sondland never told Secretary Pompeo that he believed the president was linking aid to investigations of political opponents," Ortagus said. "Any suggestion to the contrary is flat out false.”

Sarah Tinsley, a spokeswoman for Bolton, said he had “no comment” on Sondland’s testimony.

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White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said "no quid pro quo ever occurred" connecting the Ukraine security aid to the opening of investigations.

“Democrats keep chasing ghosts,” she concluded.

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Sondland: 'Pompeo was directing'

Sondland said he was deeply concerned that the U.S. military aid was being used as leverage to pressure Zelensky because there was no other "credible explanation" for the White House's refusal to release the nearly $400 million in funds.

"In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded," Sondland said.

Sondland said Pompeo was approved those connections.

He produced an Aug. 22 email to Pompeo asking whether he should try to schedule a brief face-to-face meeting between Trump and Zelensky in Poland to help break "the logjam," referring to the frozen military aid. At the time of the email, Trump was scheduled to travel to Warsaw – a trip that was later cancelled.

"Should we block time in Warsaw for a short pull-aside for Potus to meet Zelensky?" Sondland wrote in the email to Pompeo, using the common abbreviation for president of the United States. "I would ask Zelensky to look him (Trump) in the eye and tell him that once Ukraine’s new justice folks are in place (mid-Sept) Ze(lensky) should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to Potus and to the US. Hopefully, that will break the logjam."

Secretary Pompeo responded three minutes later: “Yes.”

"Even as late as Sept. 24, Secretary Pompeo was directing Kurt Volker (Trump's special envoy for Ukraine) to speak with Rudy Giuliani," Sondland recounted. "In a WhatsApp message, Kurt Volker told me in part, 'Spoke w Rudy per guidance from S.'"

Sondland noted that "S" is shorthand for secretary of state.

Sondland said he directly raised concerns about the Ukraine pressure campaign with Pence during a meeting in Poland, where the vice president was standing in for Trump.

“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,” Sondland told lawmakers. He said that conversation occurred Sept. 1 before a meeting between Pence and Zelensky.

Pence did not respond orally but nodded his head, Sondland recounted.

“I was in a briefing with several people, and I just spoke up and I said it appears that everything is stalled until this statement gets made. ... And the vice president nodded, like you know, he heard what I said, and that was pretty much it, as I recall,” Sondland said.

Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, said no such conversation occurred.

“The Vice President never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations," Short said in a statement released Wednesday.

“Ambassador Gordon Sondland was never alone with Vice President Pence on the September 1 trip to Poland. This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened," Short said.

Short noted that other witnesses have testified under oath that Pence never raised Joe Biden, his son Hunter or Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden worked for when his father was vice president.

Republican lawmakers tried to undercut Sondland's credibility, pointing out that, unlike other witnesses, Sondland did not take notes of his conversations with Trump and other players. And Sondland's testimony has shifted; in his private deposition last month, Sondland evaded a direct answer when asked about a "quid pro quo" but testified that Trump had told him there was not one.

He later amended that, saying that the accounts of other witnesses had refreshed his memory.

Sondland: Investigations were linked to Ukraine Ambassador Gordon Sondland says he never heard President Donald Trump say that military aid to Ukraine was conditioned on a public announcement by the Ukrainian president that the country was investigating Democrats. (Nov. 20)

"You don't have records, you don't have your notes because you didn't take notes, you don't have a lot of recollections," said Steve Castor, the Republican committee's staff attorney who led much of the questioning. "I mean, this is like the trifecta of unreliability, isn't that true?"

Sondland said he was trying to be "as forthcoming as possible."

In his opening statement, Sondland told the panel that the State Department had blocked him from getting access to documents that would help him give the committee a fuller account of his Ukraine dealings.

"My lawyers and I have made multiple requests to the State Department and the White House for these materials," but those requests have been stymied, he said.

Sondland's emails detail efforts

As part of Sondland's testimony, he produced emails he sent to Pompeo and other top Trump administration officials, showing that he communicated with them regularly about his Ukraine efforts. Pence is not among the recipients.

A July 19 email from Sondland to Pompeo, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other officials started with the subject line “Re: I Talked to Zelensky just now" and said Zelensky was ready to receive a call from Trump.

“He is prepared to receive POTUS' call. Will assure him [Trump] that he [Zelensky] intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone,’” Sondland wrote.

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Perry and Mulvaney responded to Sondland’s email.

On Aug. 11, Sondland sent an email to State Department officials and addressed to Pompeo:

“Mike – Kurt and I negotiated a statement from Zelensky to be delivered for our review in a day or two,” Sondland wrote. “The contents will hopefully make the boss happy enough to authorize an invitation. Ze[lensky] plans to have a big presser on the openness subject (including specifics) next week.”

Sondland said "boss" referred to Trump. Kenna responded that she would pass the note to Pompeo.

"The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false," Sondland said. "Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret."

Contributing: Nicholas Wu

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