Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
Sondland Admits Quid Pro Quo with Ukraine in Impeachment Testimony
Posted
November 6, 2019
Views
149,236
Likes
649
Comments
957
Engagement
November 6, 2019
149,236
649
957
1.08%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
4:25Now PlayingIn a striking reversal, a top diplomat revised his testimony in the House impeachment inquiry to acknowledge that U.S. military aid to Ukraine was being withheld until the foreign ally promised to investigate corruption as President Donald Trump wanted.
The three-page update from U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, tucked beneath hundreds of pages of sworn testimony released Tuesday, provides new insight into Trump's push for Ukraine to investigate Democrats and Joe Biden in what the Democrats call a quid pro quo at the center of the House inquiry.
Specifically, Sondland said he now recalls telling a top aide to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on the sidelines of a Warsaw meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, that military aid to the country "would likely not occur" until Ukraine had provided a public anti-corruption statement "as we have been discussing for many weeks."
AP Reporter Eric Tucker explains why Sondland's recent revised testimony is important.
"He (Sondland) says he did so based on the opening statements of two additional witnesses,"said Tucker.
"He said after reading those statements, his recollection was refreshed, was refreshed, and he recognized and remembered new details that he previously was unaware of or had not had not remembered."
Trump has denied any quid pro quo, but Democrats say that is the singular narrative developing from the president's July 25 call with Zelenskiy .
In that call, Trump, asked for "a favor," the spark for the impeachment inquiry.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said the House panels conducting the inquiry are releasing the word-by-word transcripts of the past weeks' closed-door hearings so the American public can decide for themselves.
Pushing back, Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement saying the transcripts "show there is even less evidence for this illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought."
House investigators released transcripts from Sondland, a wealthy businessman who donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and is the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and from Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine.
The panels also announced they want to hear from Trump's acting chief of staff, reaching to the highest levels of the White House.
The documents include dozens of pages of text messages as the diplomats tried to navigate the demands of Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, who they soon learn is running a back channel U.S. foreign policy on Ukraine.
Sondland testified that he spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Giuliani, "and Pompeo rolled his eyes and said: 'Yes, it's something we have to deal with.'"
Pressed by investigators, Sondland -- who initially said he didn't know that the Ukraine firm Burisma that Trump wanted to investigate was linked to the Biden's son, Hunter -- also testified that it would be improper for the U.S. to prompt Ukraine to investigate the Biden family. "It doesn't sound good."
In his revised testimony, Sondland says his memory was refreshed by the opening statements of two other inquiry witnesses, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William Taylor, and Tim Morrison, a European expert at the National Security Council.
Sondland also told investigators Trump was in a "bad mood" and nearly hung up on him when he asked specifically whether the White House was withholding military aid for the investigation.
Public hearings could begin as soon as next week in the impeachment inquiry that Trump says is illegitimate and Republicans in Congress call a sham.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
TICTOC ON SOCIAL:
Follow TicToc on Twitter
Like TicToc on Facebook
Follow TicToc on Instagram
Subscribe to our newsletter
TicToc by Bloomberg is global news for the life you lead. We are a 24/7 news network that covers breaking news, politics, technology, business and entertainment stories from around the globe, supported by a network of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists across 120 countries.
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
