A key figure in the Ukraine saga revised his testimony for impeachment investigators.
Gordon Sondland, a key witness in the 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 Sept. 1 meeting in Warsaw, Poland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 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.
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BREAKING: Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the EU, reversed himself in a new testimony to House impeachment investigators.
He's now saying he believes Ukraine military aid was contingent upon the launch of politically-motivated investigations https://t.co/0E3zS0YDJs
— POLITICO (@politico) November 5, 2019
BREAKING: Sondland significantly revised his testimony, saying he told a top Ukrainian official that the country would “likely” not receive military aid unless it announced investigations into Trump’s political rivals. pic.twitter.com/qlszbqDN5i
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) November 5, 2019
Sondland admits to speaking with Rick Perry before his deposition to "refresh" his memory on certain things, and consulting his lawyer before doing so.
This is the kind of communication between witnesses that Democrats said they were trying to avoid with closed-door depositions. pic.twitter.com/x8H6veTdp7
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) November 5, 2019
A CYA after other witnesses outed him as a liar he suddenly remembers things differently. Another “only the best” people pick of Trumps.
The clown, Rep. Nunes, used his entire time to question Ambassador Sondland trying to get him to talk about the Steele Dossier, and Sondland was like "I have no idea what you're on about." pic.twitter.com/UiNthWKZRb
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) November 5, 2019
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