Elizabeth Warren incorrectly said she was against a Trump administration ambassador nominee who later became a key witness for House Democrats investigating whether President Trump should be impeached: Gordon Sondland.
“When he came through — I think most of these guys came through on consent — I objected to all of them,” the Massachusetts senator, 70, told reporters late Sunday in New Hampshire.
Asked about Gordon Sondland’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the EU, Sen. Elizabeth Warren tells me “when he came through – I think most of these guys came through on consent – I objected to all of them” pic.twitter.com/cTRZ8R6OxQ
— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) January 13, 2020
But the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate raised no objections to Sondland’s nomination to become ambassador to the European Union when he came up for Senate confirmation in July 2018. Sondland was confirmed through a voice vote, meaning there was unanimous consent in the Senate.
During November’s debate in Atlanta, Warren ripped Sondland’s appointment for reflecting corrupt practices in Washington, D.C., citing the hotel executive’s $1 million donation to the Trump inaugural effort as proof he effectively bought the post.
“How did Ambassador Sondland get there? You know this is not a man who had any qualifications, except one: He wrote a check for a million dollars,” she said. “And that tells us about what’s happening in Washington, the corruption, how money buys its way into Washington.”
The senator has also turned her campaign promise not to put forward donors to her White House bid for ambassadorships around the world into an advertisement.
“When I’m president, that stops. I’m the only candidate running who has made this promise. I’ll never give ambassadorships to unqualified donors just because they wrote me fat checks,” she says in the spot.
