Gordon Sondland, a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, threw Trump and Giuliani under the bus in his opening statement to Congress
- Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the European Union, will turn on President Donald Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, when he testifies as part of Congress' impeachment inquiry on Thursday.
- Sondland will tell lawmakers he was against Trump's decision to conduct Ukraine policy through Giuliani, according to his opening statement.
- He will also say he didn't know "until much later" that Giuliani wanted Ukraine to investigate Burisma Holdings, the natural gas company whose board Hunter Biden sat on, to get dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.
- The ambassador is also expected to criticize Trump's decision to hold up a $400 million military-aid package to Ukraine over the summer. It "should not have been delayed for any reason," Sondland will testify.
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Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the European Union, turned on President Donald Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in his opening statement to Congress on Thursday.
Sondland is testifying as part of House Democrats' formal impeachment inquiry looking at whether Trump used his public office for private gain.
Sondland is part of a the trio of diplomats - which also includes the former Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker and the US's chief diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor - whose explosive text messages to one another revealed just how intricately involved US government officials were in Giuliani's pressure campaign on Ukraine.
Sondland will tell lawmakers that he staunchly opposed Trump's request to conduct Ukraine policy through Giuliani. Trump and Giuliani have been working since at least last spring to urge the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter for corruption, and to help discredit the FBI's finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election.
At the heart of those efforts is a July 25 phone call during which Trump repeatedly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accede to his demands. Days before the call, Trump held up a nearly $400 million military-aid package to Ukraine. During their conversation, Trump reminded Zelensky that "we do a lot for Ukraine," and followed up by asking Zelensky to "do us a favor, though," and investigate Biden and the origins of the Russia investigation.
Sondland and Volker were instrumental in conveying Trump's demands to Zelensky both before and after the phone call.
In addition to establishing a channel of communication between Giuliani and senior Ukrainian government officials, Volker and Sondland also furthered the impression that a good relationship between Trump and Zelensky - and a White House meeting between the two - was conditioned on Zelensky helping the US president's political agenda.
On Thursday, Sondland will tell lawmakers he was "disappointed by the president's direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani."
He will also testify that despite being disappointed, he got in touch with Giuliani at Trump's direction anyway, and that Giuliani indicated that a White House visit for Zelensky was predicated on Ukraine investigating Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company whose board Hunter Biden sat on, and the Russia probe.
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Sondland will testify that "Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anti-corruption investigatory topics of importance for the president," according to his opening statement.
However, Sondland will say, he didn't know Giuliani's focus on Burisma was linked to the Bidens "until much later," and that seeking foreign help in an American election "would be wrong."
The ambassador is also expected to criticize Trump's decision to hold up the military-aid package. It "should not have been delayed for any reason," Sondland will testify. But he will add that there was "no quid pro quo" involved in the matter.
Sondland has emerged in recent days as one of the central figures in Trump's and Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine. His outsize role in the matter has puzzled US officials because as the ambassador to the EU - which Ukraine isn't a part of - shouldn't have been involved in the first place.
On Tuesday, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, George Kent, outlined for congressional investigators how he was all but cut out of decisions regarding Ukraine by Sondland, Volker, and energy secretary Rick Perry.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, one of the lawmakers who heard Kent's testimony, told The New York Times that Kent described the move as "wrong."
"Here is a senior State Department official responsible for six countries, one of which is Ukraine, who found himself outside of a parallel process that he felt was undermining 28 years of US policy and promoting the rule of law in Ukraine," Connolly told The Times. He added that Kent testified that after Volker, Sondland, and Perry sidelined him, they "declared themselves the three people now responsible for Ukraine policy."