In stunning testimony today, United States (U.S.) Ambassador Gordon Sondland told House impeachment investigators that President Donald Trump directed Rudy Giuliani to pursue a “quid pro quo”.
The requests by Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, involved granting a White House meeting for Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Sondland testified.
“Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations” into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, where former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had been a board member, Sondland said.
“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 said in his opening statement.
Sondland was the most-anticipated witness to appear for a public hearing in the House impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations for his personal political gain.
Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, had direct contact with the president, and had previously discussed the investigations with him, according to testimony from previous witnesses.
Sondland said he sent an email to Pompeo, Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other senior aides saying that Zelenskiy “intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone.’”
That email was sent on July 19 — days before Trump’s request in a July 25 phone call that Zelenskiy “look into” the Bidens, Burisma and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton. A whistleblower’s complaint about that call sparked the impeachment inquiry.
“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said. “It was no secret.”
Sondland also said other officials, including former national security advisor John Bolton, Pompeo’s counselor Ulrich Brechbuehl and State Department official Lisa Kenna, had been kept informed of his activities. (AFP)
