Other witnesses have contradicted the ambassador’s testimony, but proving in court that he deliberately lied to Congress could be difficult.
Though Democrats are more confident than ever in their growing impeachment case against President Donald Trump, they’re also setting their sights on a top Trump ally: Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
Some Democrats have begun to raise the specter that Sondland, a Republican donor who is Trump’s representative to the European Union, perjured himself during his closed-door testimony to impeachment investigators earlier this month.
Testimony from other witnesses has put the credibility of Trump’s most favorable witness into serious doubt as the White House struggles to define a response to the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry beyond simply refusing to cooperate with it.
Democrats have cited Sondland’s repeated memory lapses pertaining to central events surrounding Trump’s pressure campaign to get Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Joe Biden.
They raised similar questions about Sondland’s truthfulness following the testimony last week of acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, who said Sondland had conveyed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the release of U.S. military assistance aid was predicated upon Zelensky publicly committing to the investigations Trump demanded.
But it was the opening statement made public late Monday by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Trump’s top National Security Council adviser on Ukraine, that had Democrats questioning Sondland’s testimony most pointedly.
Sondland testified that “neither Ambassador Bolton, Dr. Hill, nor anyone else in the NSC staff ever expressed any concerns to me about our efforts … or any concerns that we were acting improperly,” referring to former national security adviser John Bolton and former NSC senior Russia director Fiona Hill, who gave her own testimony last week.
Sondland added that if Bolton, Hill, “or any others harbored misgivings about the propriety of what we were doing, they never shared those misgivings with me, then or later.”
According to Vindman, that is not true. In his opening statement, Vindman wrote that he and Hill confronted Sondland on July 10 following a meeting with Ukraine’s top national security official. And, according to both Hill and Vindman, Bolton abruptly ended a meeting with Ukraine’s top national security official, Oleksandr Danylyuk, because he was disturbed by Sondland’s comments.
Vindman said both he and Hill subsequently accused Sondland of “inappropriate” remarks to the Ukrainians that seemed to condition a potential White House visit for Zelensky on a promise to open Trump’s desired investigations.
“I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push,” Vindman told lawmakers, according to his prepared statement. He noted that he took his concerns to the NSC’s top lawyer after the meeting.
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Though Democrats are more confident than ever in their growing impeachment case against President Donald Trump, they're also setting their sights on a top Trump ally: Ambassador Gordon Sondland https://t.co/FDp5kiYJYD
— POLITICO (@politico) October 29, 2019
NEW: Fresh testimony from Vindman has put the credibility of Sondland, Trump’s most favorable witness, into serious doubt.
“Based on all the testimony so far, I believe that Amb. Gordon Sondland committed perjury,” Rep. @JoaquinCastrotx said last night.https://t.co/lEf2RWtgCx
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 29, 2019
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