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Unpredictable
Sondland
faces
questions
about
Trump,
Ukraine
By
LISA
MASCARO,
MARY
CLARE
JALONICK
and
ERIC
TUCKER
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
-
Ambassador
Gordon
Sondland,
the most
anticipated
witness
in the
impeachment
inquiry,
is
likely
to be
unpredictable
when he
faces
questions
about
his
evolving
accounts
of the
Trump
administration’s
dealings
with
Ukraine
and a
newly
revealed
summertime
phone
call
with
President
Donald
Trump.
Sondland,
a
wealthy
hotelier
Trump
tapped
as his
ambassador
to the
European
Union,
is more
directly
entangled
than any
witness
yet in
the
president’s
efforts
to get
Ukraine
to
investigate
political
rival
Joe
Biden
and
Democrats
in the
2016
election.
Yet
Sondland
has
already
amended
his
testimony
once —
“I now
do
recall,”
he said,
talking
to
Ukraine
about
investigations.
Sondland’s
appearance
at
Wednesday
morning’s
hearing,
and his
closeness
to
Trump,
is of
particular
concern
to the
White
House as
the
historic
impeachment
inquiry
reaches
closer
to the
president,
pushing
through
an
intense
week
with
nine
witnesses
testifying
over
three
days in
back-to-back
sessions.
Trump
has
recently
tried to
suggest
that he
barely
knows
his
hand-picked
ambassador,
but
Sondland
has said
he has
spoken
several
times
with the
president
and was
acting
on his
direction.
The
envoy is
likely
to face
tough
questions
from
lawmakers
of both
parties
about
Trump’s
July 25
call
when he
asked
Ukraine
President
Volodymyr
Zelenskiy
for the
political
investigations
at the
same
time as
U.S.
military
aid for
the ally
was
being
stalled.
Sondland
routinely
bragged
about
his
proximity
to Trump
and drew
alarm
from the
foreign
service
and
national
security
apparatus
as part
of an
irregular
channel
of
diplomacy
led by
the
president’s
lawyer,
Rudy
Giuliani.
Last
week
State
Department
official
David
Holmes
revealed
one of
those
interactions
to
impeachment
investigators,
saying
he
recalled
it
“vividly.”
The
political
counselor
was
having
lunch
with
Sondland
in Kyiv
when the
ambassador
dialed
up the
the
president
on his
cell
phone
and
Holmes
could
hear
Trump’s
voice.
“I
then
heard
President
Trump
ask,
quote,
‘So he’s
going to
do the
investigation?’”
Holmes
testified.
“Ambassador
Sondland
replied
that
‘He’s
going to
do it,’
adding
that
President
Zelensky
will,
quote,
‘do
anything
you ask
him
to.’”
Sondland
was
known
for
telling
others
“he was
in
charge
of
Ukraine”
despite
being
the U.S.
envoy in
Brussels,
said
another
witness
in the
impeachment
probe,
former
White
House
Russia
adviser
Fiona
Hill.
“And
I asked,
well, on
whose
authority?”
said
Hill,
who will
testify
Thursday.
“And he
said,
the
President.”
Sondland’s
appearance
follows
the
testimony
Tuesday
of four
national
security
and
diplomatic
officials,
including
a career
Army
officer
who
described
Trump’s
call
with
Zelenskiy
as
“improper.”
Lt.
Col.
Alexander
Vindman
told
lawmakers
it was
his
“duty”
to
report
his
concerns
about
the
call, as
he
deflected
Republican
attacks,
including
from the
White
House on
his
loyalty
and
career
in
public
service.
It
wasn’t
the
first
time
Vindland
had
registered
his
concerns
over
Ukraine
policy.
He
testified
about a
July 10
meeting
at the
White
House
when
Sondland
told
visiting
Ukraine
officials
they
would
need to
“deliver”
before
the
administration
would
agree to
a
meeting
Zelenskiy
wanted
with
Trump.
“Ambassador
Sondland
referred
to
investigations
into the
Bidens
and
Burisma
in
2016,”
Vindman
testified,
referring
to the
gas
company
on whose
board
Hunter
Biden
had a
seat.
At
the
White
House,
Trump
said he
had
watched
part of
the
day’s
testimony
and
slammed
the
ongoing
impeachment
hearings
as a
“disgrace.”
Over the
weekend,
Trump
assailed
Williams
as part
of the
“Never
Trumpers”
who
oppose
his
presidency,
though
there is
no
indication
she has
shown
any
partisanship.
Former
National
Security
Council
official
Timothy
Morrison
told
investigators
that he
witnessed
a key
September
conversation
in
Warsaw
between
Sondland
and a
top aide
to
Zelenskiy.
Afterward,
Sondland
said he
had
relayed
to the
Ukrainian
that
U.S. aid
might be
freed if
the
country
would
announce
the
investigations,
Morrison
testified.
Another
diplomat,
former
special
envoy to
Ukraine
Kurt
Volker,
shifted
his own
account
of the
July 10
meeting
to say
Sondland
did, in
fact,
discuss
investigations
with the
visiting
Ukrainians.
“I
think
all of
us
thought
it was
inappropriate;
the
conversation
did not
continue
and the
meeting
concluded,”
Volker
said.
A
series
of text
messages
Volker
provided
to
lawmakers
showed
conversations
between
him,
Sondland
and
other
leaders
in which
they
discussed
a need
for
Ukraine
to
launch
investigations,
including
into
Burisma.
Volker
said
meeting
with
Giuliani
was just
part of
the
dialogue,
and he
had one
in-person
meeting
with
him, in
which
Giuliani
“raised,
and I
rejected,
the
conspiracy
theory
that
Vice
President
Biden
would
have
been
influenced
in his
duties
as vice
president
by money
paid to
his
son.”
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