The hotel executive President Donald Trump appointed as an ambassador after he donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration testified on Wednesday that Trump gave him “express direction” to work with Rudy Giuliani, who was pressuring Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.
“Everyone was in the loop,” Gordon Sondland, the US Ambassador to the European Union, said. “It was no secret.”
“We followed the president’s orders,” Sondland said in his statement.
The statement says he believed there was a “quid pro quo” ― that Ukrainians had to respond to Trump’s requests to get a White House call or meeting.
Sondland said his goal was to get the aid released and that he was trying to “break the logjam” by having Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issue a statement that would draw Biden into a foreign investigation and boost Trump’s 2020 election prospects.
“I believed that the public statement we had been discussing for weeks was essential to advancing that goal. I really regret that the Ukrainians were placed in that predicament, but I do not regret doing what I could to try to break the logjam and to solve the problem,” he said.
The wealthy hotelier and Trump donor has emerged as a central figure in an intense week with nine witnesses giving evidence over three days. He has told legislators the White House has records of the July 26 call, despite the fact Trump has said he does not recall the conversation.
The ambassador’s account of the recently revealed call supports the evidence of multiple witnesses who have spoken to impeachment investigators over the past week.
Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats as he was withholding military aid to the east European nation is at the centre of the impeachment probe that imperils his presidency.
Democratic committee chairman Adam Schiff opened the hearing saying: “The knowledge of this scheme was far and wide.”
He warned Pompeo and other administration officials who are refusing to turn over documents and evidence to the committee “they do so at their own peril”. He said obstruction of Congress was included in articles of impeachment during Watergate.
The top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, condemned the inquiry and told the ambassador: “Mr Sondland, you are here to be smeared.”
Nunes renewed his demand to hear from the still-anonymous whistleblower whose complaint about Mr Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy led the House to open the impeachment inquiry.