Ambassador Gordon Sondland is one of President Trump’s most ubiquitous and eager hatchet men in the attempt to get Ukraine officials to dig up dirt and launch investigations in former Vice President Joe Biden. But in his testimony on Wednesday the EU ambassador made clear that if he’s going to be the fall guy for the Ukraine scandal, he’s not going alone. Sondland’s refrain throughout his testimony was that “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” Translation: you can’t pin this on just me, lots of people knew what was going on with Ukraine over the summer.
So who did Sondland implicate with knowledge of the alleged Ukraine quid pro quo, what did they know, and when did they know it?
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Mike Pompeo: Sondland produced emails and text messages showing that Pompeo was informed about his efforts to get a statement from Ukrainian officials promising an investigation into Burisma—the natural gas company linked to Biden’s son Hunter—and set up a meeting where Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky could talk to Trump about them.
An August 11 email produced by Sondland during his testimony shows he sent a message to the State Department executive secretary Lisa Kenna for her to relay to Pompeo. The email said that Sondland had “negotiated a statement from Ze[lensky]” which “will hopefully make the boss happy enough to authorize an invitation” to the White House, and included a discussion of the “openness subject (including specifics).” Those “specifics,” Sondland testified, were a reference to investigations into alleged 2016 Ukrainian election meddling and Burisma Holdings.
Sondland also emailed Pompeo about an effort to arrange an informal meeting between Trump and Zelensky during their presence at a World War II commemoration ceremony in Poland “on those issues of importance to Potus and to the US. Hopefully, that will break the logjam.” Those “issues of importance,” Sondland again testified, were a reference to 2016 and Burisma investigations. The meeting in Poland ultimately did not take place after Trump cancelled his trip there.
Pompeo is also implicated in Giuliani’s private channel to Ukraine. In previous testimony, Sondland had painted the president’s lawyer as an annoyance to Pompeo who suffered him reluctantly, saying that the secretary of state had rolled his eyes at the mention of Giuliani’s name and said he’s “something we have to deal with.” But in his testimony on Wednesday, Sondland said Pompeo had actively directed Volker to talk to Giuliani “as late as September 24.
And in a partial rebuttal to claims that he had forced himself onto the Ukraine portfolio as ambassador to the European Union, Sondland also pointedly noted that he had attended Zelensky’s May inauguration “with the express support of Secretary Pompeo.”
Sondland’s testimony implicating Pompeo in knowledge of the alleged Ukraine shakedown couldn’t come at a more awkward time for the secretary of state. Pompeo has spent an inordinate amount of time over the past few weeks doing media in his home state of Kansas, reportedly in preparation for a run in the Republican primary for the senate seat there—a run that Time magazine reported could be imminent.
Vice President Mike Pence: Vice President Pence has thus far played only a bit part in the Ukraine drama. His removal from the U.S. delegation at Zelensky’s inauguration in May was interpreted by some as pressure on the Ukrainians to deliver on the investigations Trump and Giuliani were asking for. One of Pence’s aides, Jennifer Williams, testified on Tuesday that she’d placed a copy of the infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky in Pence’s briefing book. Williams testified that she, personally, found the discussion “unusual” and related to “a domestic political matter,” rather than foreign policy but didn’t share those concerns with Pence or the White House counsel.
Until that point, no one had been able to tie Pence to a conversation where someone said explicitly that Ukraine’s investigations of the Bidens, Burisma, and the 2016 election had become a precondition for either a White House meeting or U.S. military aid.
That is, until today. Sondland testified that concerns that he raised his concerns explicitly with Pence shortly before he pet with Zelensky in Warsaw, Poland on September 1.
“I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations,” he said. The comments came in a “briefing with several people,” Sondland said, and added that “it appears that everything is stalled until this statement gets made.”
It’s still unclear, what if anything Pence did with the information. Sondland testified that, “The Vice President nodded. He heard what I said. And that was pretty much it.“
Pence’s office has since disputed Sondland’s testimony. In a statement, his chief of staff Marc Short said: “Ambassador Gordon Sondland was never alone with Vice President Pence on the September 1 trip to Poland. This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened." Sondland, however, never said they met alone and claimed that his statement to Pence came when he “spoke up” while “in a briefing with several people.”
John Bolton: There’s no apparent love lost between Trump’s former National Security Adviser and Sondland. According to other witness testimony, Bolton famously said he wanted no parts of the “drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up” and called Giuliani “a hand grenade who's going to blow everybody up.” Bolton was also reportedly furious with Sondland for allegedly tying the promise of a Trump meeting to investigations of the Bidens during a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian officials.
But in testimony on Wednesday, Sondland at least implied that Bolton may not have been as disdainful of Giuliani as he implied in his “hand grenade” comments. “On August 26, shortly before his visit to Kyiv, Ambassador Bolton’s office requested Mr. Giuliani’s contact information. I sent Ambassador Bolton the information directly,” Sondland said in his opening statement after reiterating that “everyone was in the loop.”
Asked why Bolton wanted Giuliani’s information, Sondland said “No idea” while stifling a laugh and testified that he thought it was an “odd request given that the White House can get pretty much anyone’s contact info they want.”
