Sondland
reverses himself on Ukraine, confirming quid pro quo
A key
figure in the Ukraine saga revised his testimony for impeachment investigators.
By ANDREW
DESIDERIO AND KYLE CHENEY 11/5/19, 9:51 PM CET Updated 11/6/19, 7:47 AM CET
WASHINGTON
— Gordon Sondland, a key witness in a U.S. House of Representatives impeachment
inquiry, revealed that he told a top Ukrainian official that hundreds of
millions of dollars in military aid would “likely” be held up unless the
country’s government announced investigations into President Donald Trump’s
political rivals — a major reversal from his previous closed-door testimony.
The
acknowledgment of a quid pro quo is an explosive shift that threatens to upend
claims by the president’s allies that military aid was not used as a bludgeon
to advance his domestic political interests.
In his
revised testimony, released Tuesday by House impeachment investigators,
Sondland said that during a September 1 meeting in Warsaw, Poland, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised his concerns to Vice President Mike Pence
about the suspension of military aid.
Sondland,
Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, added that he later told Andriy
Yermak, a top Ukrainian national security adviser, the aid would be contingent
on Trump’s desired investigations.
“After that
large meeting, I now recall speaking individually with Mr. Yermak, where I said
that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the
public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,”
Sondland wrote in his addendum, which was released alongside a nearly 400-page
transcript of his testimony.
Sondland
revealed the exchange in supplemental testimony he submitted to House
impeachment investigators on Monday, saying he had failed to recall the episode
when he testified in person last month. Sondland, who had a direct line to
Trump and was a major donor to his 2016 presidential campaign, had previously
indicated he was unaware of any effort to connect military aid to Trump’s
demand for politically motivated investigations.
Sondland was
eager to maintain that public posture, even with other U.S. officials working
on Ukraine policy.
Eight days
after privately telling Yermak that military aid was contingent on Trump’s
desired investigations, Sondland wrote in a text message to William Taylor, the
top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, that Trump had been “crystal clear” that there
was no quid pro quo involving military aid and publicly announced
investigations. Sondland told investigators he was simply repeating what Trump
had told him.
The
transcripts released Tuesday — which included that of former U.S. special envoy
Kurt Volker — paint a picture of an American president whose deep-rooted hostility
toward Ukraine was evident in private conversations, including his belief that
the country “tried to take me down,” in reference to a debunked conspiracy
theory about the country’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Trump appeared to view the election of a new Ukrainian president as an
opportunity to extract political benefits.
Trump’s
allies initially believed Sondland would provide exculpatory evidence to boost
the president's case, but subsequent witnesses had contradicted many of Sondland’s
claims — and Democratic lawmakers even questioned whether he had perjured
himself, likely prompting Sondland’s addendum.
The nearly
400-page transcript of Sondland’s Oct. 17 testimony underscores the power and
influence Rudy Giuliani had over U.S. dealings with Ukraine.
Giuliani,
the president’s personal lawyer, was establishing contacts on the ground in
Ukraine — including with the former top prosecutor whom U.S. officials believed
was not credible — and conducting what several witnesses for the impeachment
inquiry described as a shadow diplomatic effort that ran counter to U.S. goals
and interests.
Sondland,
for his part, said in his opening statement to impeachment investigators that
he was “disappointed” Trump had directed him to involve Giuliani but that he
reluctantly agreed because the former New York mayor was “the key to changing
the president’s mind on Ukraine.”
In fact,
according to the full transcript of Sondland’s testimony, the ambassador said
he “assumed” Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice
President Joe Biden were illegal.
At least
one senior official told Giuliani he believed the allegations against Biden and
his son Hunter — which form the basis of Trump’s overtures to Kyiv — were
false. According to the transcript of his Oct. 3 testimony, Volker dismissed
the idea that Joe Biden pushed for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor in
order to help his son.
“I said to
Rudy in that breakfast the first time we sat down to talk that it is simply not
credible to me that Joe Biden would be influenced in his duties as vice
president by money or things for his son or anything like that,” Volker said.
“I’ve known him a long time. He’s a person of integrity, and that’s not
credible.”
In his
supplemental testimony, Sondland said he initially believed the public
declarations for new investigations could be made by Ukraine’s top prosecutor
but that he later “came to understand that, in fact, the public statement would
need to come directly from President Zelenskiy himself.”
Just three
days before Sondland’s conversation with Yermak in Warsaw, on Aug. 28, POLITICO
first revealed that the military aid had been frozen.
The
transcripts released by impeachment investigators on Tuesday were accompanied
by a tranche of text messages chronicling communications among Sondland and two
other senior diplomats involved in the Ukraine controversy — Volker and Taylor.
In one
exchange, Volker sent Yermak the precise language that the U.S. wanted
Zelenskiy to use when he announced Trump’s preferred investigations.
“Special
attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political
processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of some
Ukrainian politicians,” Zelenskiy was to say. “I want to declare that this is
unacceptable. We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased
investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving
Burisma and the 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the recurrence of
this problem in the future.”
Sondland
said he “always believed that suspending aid to Ukraine was ill-advised,” and
although he claims he did not know why the military assistance was initially
suspended, Sondland said he later “presumed” the aid “had become linked to the
proposed anti-corruption statement.”
House
Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry in late September after learning a
whistleblower had raised concerns about Trump’s posture toward Ukraine and,
specifically, toward Zelenskiy during a July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian
counterpart.
The inquiry
centers on whether Trump abused the power of the presidency to pressure the
Ukrainians to investigate his political rivals based on spurious charges.
Investigators are also looking into the extent to which military aid and a
White House meeting with Zelenskiy were used as leverage to bend the country to
Trump’s will.
Democrats
appeared to zero in on the circumstances surrounding Sondland’s testimony — and
whether White House officials attempted to interfere. It’s a signal that even
as they search for evidence of Trump’s alleged abuse of power, they’re also
compiling evidence for a potential article of impeachment on obstruction of
Congress.
Sondland
revealed that after he was summoned to testify to Congress, he bumped into Trump
at the White House and informed him of his plan to speak to lawmakers. He said
Trump simply responded, “Good, go tell the truth.”
But
Sondland said he also received unsolicited outreach from the White House
counsel’s office asking him to come in for an interview to glean his
recollection of events. Sondland also said he believed State Department leaders
repeatedly tried to block him from testifying.
Sondland
said he spoke several times with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, including on the
day before his initial congressional testimony, to “refresh my memory about a
couple of meetings.” When investigators asked him whether he was aware it could
look like he was trying to coordinate his story, Sondland repeated, “I wanted
to refresh my memory.”
The White
House responded to Tuesday’s revelations without addressing Sondland’s
conversation with Yermak. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in
a statement the transcripts “show there is even less evidence for this
illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought.”
Authors:
Andrew
Desiderio and Kyle Cheney
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