The U.S. ambassador to the European Union told the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday that President Donald Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo” in his dealings with the president of Ukraine.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., pointedly asked Gordon Sondland, who was appointed by Trump, if he was disheartened by the president’s demands on the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, including holding up a meeting until an investigation into the Biden family was announced.
“I would have preferred, and I’m sure everyone would have preferred, that the president simply met with Zelensky right away,” Sondland responded.
For weeks the House Intelligence Committee has been investigating a July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, in which the U.S. president asked Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son — Hunter Biden — who served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine, from 2014 to 2019.
Sondland dealt directly with the question at hand.
“I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said.
Sondland did not use the term when later describing the holdup of military aid to Ukraine.
Welch, during his questioning of the U.S. diplomat, cited the transcript of that phone call, which the Vermont congressman has called the “smoking gun” of the impeachment inquiry.
“The president in his phone call, he asked President Zelensky, who desperately needed the release of that aid, who desperately needed the White House meeting to do an investigation. And it was focused on the Bidens — and Hunter Biden and Burisma,” Welch said.
“The president’s words speak for themselves,” he added.
Sondland testified how he and others “followed the president’s orders” when instructed to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, in an attempt to get Zelensky to publicly announce there would be an investigation into Hunter Biden.
George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Eastern Europe, testified last week that Giuliani had been working through diplomatic back channels to “gin up politically motivated” investigations into Hunter Biden and allegations Ukraine tried to meddle in the 2016 election.
It has been alleged by Democrats that Trump postponed a White House visit with Zelensky and froze $400 million in military aid to Ukraine until the investigations were underway.
Sondland said he was unsure why the White House had chosen to freeze the military aid. William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified last week it was his “clear understanding” the release of the money was conditional on Zelensky’s cooperation with opening a probe into the Bidens.
Republicans were quick to take Sondland’s lack of direct knowledge about Trump’s motivation for withholding the aid as an exoneration for the president.
House Republicans have maintained the impeachment process has been nothing but a Democrat-led effort to oust Trump from office, over an interaction of little consequence with a foreign government.
Ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said in his opening statement that Democrats would attempt to “smear” Sondland’s words.
However, Sondland added that soon after the July 25 phone call, it became his understanding the military aid was in fact tied to the political investigations, although neither Giuliani nor Trump told him this explicitly.
“By the end of August, my belief was that if Ukraine did something to demonstrate a serious intention to fight corruption, specifically addressing Burisma and (allegations Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 elections), then the hold on military aid would be lifted,” said Sondland.
Sondland’s testimony also implicated the direct involvement of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and Andriy Yermak (a top aide to Zelensky) in efforts to open an investigation into the Bidens.
In a Sept. 1 Warsaw meeting between Pence and Zelensky, the Ukrainian president asked why the security assistance had not yet been been granted. Pence did not answer, instead saying he would need to speak with Trump about aid, according to Sondland.
“Based on my communications with Secretary Pompeo, I felt comfortable sharing my concerns with Mr. Yermak,” Sondland said.
“I told Mr. Yermak that I believed that the resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” he added.
Sondland’s firsthand account of the events leading up to and after the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky comes after a busy Tuesday in which four witnesses spoke to the intelligence committee.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Welch said Trump is free to attack the Biden family and investigate them, but that the president crosses the legal line when he pressures a foreign government for assistance — this is an argument he made during last week’s proceedings as well.
“You want to investigate Joe Biden? You want to investigate Hunter Biden? Go at it. Do it, do it hard, do it dirty,” Welch said. “Just don’t do it by asking a foreign leader to help you in your campaign.”
Welch also asked Tim Morrison, a White House aide with the National Security Council, and Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, if it would be acceptable for someone in elected office to withhold funding unless an entity agreed to investigate a private citizen for personal gain.
Both Morrison and Volker said that conduct should not be tolerated.
In Tuesday’s questioning, Welch had asked: “Would you agree that the president has the same obligation, as the mayor, as the governor, as the member of Congress to not withhold aid unless he gets an investigation into a political rival?”
