Gordon Sondland is jumping ship. As President Trump’s appointed U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Sondland has been a central figure in the Democrats’ impeachment efforts. He played a significant role in what acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor dubbed the “irregular channel” of Ukraine policy, along with Rudy Giuliani and Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine. But Sondland, just as Volker, is putting distance between himself and the White House.
Sondland insisted that he had not been a part of some sort of “rogue diplomacy” during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday, but did admit that, at the behest of Giuliani, the White House did, in fact, commit a “quid pro quo.”
“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?’” Sondland said in his opening remarks. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
The quid pro quo first occurred when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for a White House visit, Sondland said. Trump’s senior officials made it clear that that meeting would not occur until Zelensky publicly announced an investigation into 2016 election meddling and Burisma, the Ukrainian oil company connected to Hunter Biden.
Shortly after, Sondland said he got word that military aid to Ukraine had been delayed. He’s never been given an explanation for why this aid was held up. If Ukraine demonstrated a legitimate intent to crack down on corruption and investigate Burisma, Sondland said he believed the hold on military aid would be lifted. To break the “log jam,” Sondland admitted he encouraged Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials to follow Giuliani’s directives.
“As time went on, more specific items got added to the menu,” Sondland said. “Over this continuum, it became more and more difficult to secure the White House meeting because more and more conditions were being placed on the White House meeting.”
So finally, the Democrats have their quid pro quo. Even if Trump never explicitly stated that military aid was dependent on Ukraine’s investigations, Sondland said that “everyone was in the loop” and acted under the impression that that was, in fact, the situation.
Sondland seems to be making a calculated bet that Trump won’t walk away from impeachment unscathed. Just look at how many times he’s changed his story. First, he insisted that there was no quid pro quo. Then, he admitted he had actually communicated the quid pro quo. And now, Sondland is throwing the White House under the bus and claiming that he knew of but was powerless to stop a quid pro quo.
It’s unlikely that Sondland’s admission will move the needle on impeachment. It will take more than a quid pro quo for the Senate to convict Trump, and the GOP will continue to insist that even if there was a quid pro quo, there was nothing innately malicious about it. But Sondland’s testimony proves that Trump’s motivations were personal and that the president did put U.S. national security interests at risk for the sake of political gain.
