U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland will give explosive testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this morning. He will say that “everyone” knew about a quid pro quo demanded of Ukraine for military aid and that the scheme was explicitly directed by President Trump.
Said Sondland: “We followed the president’s orders.”
From his opening statement:
Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.
Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.
The most explosive statement: “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.”
NBC News says Sondland “plans to show up for his televised hearing with reams of new text messages and emails he said prove the highest levels of the White House and the State Department were in on it.”
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