U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified Wednesday, Nov. 20, in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry.
WASHINGTON (AP) Developments on Wednesday, Nov. 20, on President Donald Trump and the House impeachment inquiry (all times Eastern Standard Time).
- 8:25 p.m.
Intelligence Committee Democrats killed five Republican attempts to issue subpoenas for witnesses and documents, including the anonymous intelligence community whistleblower and Hunter Biden.
The requests were rejected on party-line votes.
Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said “we will not allow, as I’ve said before, this committee to be used either to out the whistleblower or for purposes of engaging the same improper investigations the president sought” regarding the Bidens.
- 8:00 p.m.
Department of Defense official Laura Cooper and David Hale, the No. 3 State Department official, testified into the evening in the fourth of five impeachment hearings this week.
Cooper testified her staff had given her new information that the Ukrainian Embassy had asked about military aid in July, earlier than was previously known.
Democrats are investigating President Trump’s requests that Ukraine investigate Democrats while U.S. security assistance was being withheld.
The impeachment hearings resume Thursday morning, with former Trump administration official Fiona Hill and diplomat David Holmes.
- 6:30 p.m.
Laura Cooper told lawmakers her staff had showed her emails she had not yet seen when she testified behind closed doors in October that the Ukrainian Embassy was asking questions of her staff about military aid as far back as July 25, the day President Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Democrats.
The embassy’s July questions show Ukrainians were aware of a possible hold on the aid earlier than previously known.
Republicans have argued there was no “quid pro quo” — investigations into Democrats for military aid — if Ukrainians weren’t aware of a hold on the aid.
- 6:05 p.m.
Cooper said she became aware in July of the hold on military aid to Ukraine and that it had been directed by the president.
Cooper is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia and Ukraine.
Cooper said she never spoke to Trump about the hold, but she heard the hold was placed because of his concerns over corruption in Ukraine.
She said the funds were critical to supporting Ukraine. She said she was under the impression the money was legally required to be obligated by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and she fought to get it done.
- 5:40 p.m.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff gaveled in the second session of Wednesday’s impeachment hearings, featuring testimony on the president’s moves to hold up military aid to Ukraine and his decision to fire Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Under Secretary of State David Hale and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Cooper were likely to testify into the evening.
In earlier closed-door testimony, Cooper said she advised other administration officials that Trump held up the aid through instructions to the White House Budget office and said she raised concerns to other government officials about the legality of holding up the aid to Ukraine.
Hale promised to provide details about the ouster of Yovanovitch, who was recalled after a smear campaign by Rudy Guiliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.
- 5:25 p.m.
President Trump said Republicans scored a victory and declared the impeachment inquiry “over.”
During a visit to an Apple assembly plant in Texas, Trump highlighted the testimony of Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, who testified that the president wanted “nothing” from Ukraine.
“Not only did we win today, it’s over,” Trump said.
But Sondland also declared that Trump and Giuliani explicitly sought a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine, leveraging a White House meeting for political investigations of Democrats. Sondland testified it was his “understanding” the president was holding up nearly $400 million in military aid in exchange for the country’s announcement of the investigations.
- 3:55 p.m.
Sondland finished almost six hours of testimony Committee Chairman Schiff called ”`a seminal moment in our investigation.”
The president’s European Union ambassador told lawmakers he worked with Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine policy at Trump’s direction and “everyone was in the loop” while Giuliani and Trump pressured Ukraine for investigations.
Schiff said Sondand’s testimony was “deeply significant and troubling.”
Republicans pushed back. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House intelligence panel, said there was “zero evidence” from Sondland’s testimony.
- 3:45 p.m.
A State Department spokeswoman has called “flat-out false” any suggestion that Ambassador Sondland told Secretary of State Pompeo that President Trump was linking aid to Ukraine to politically motivated investigations.
Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters that Sondland “never told Secretary Pompeo that he believed the president was linking aid to investigations of political opponents.”
Ortagus made the remarks to reporters accompanying Pompeo on his plane back to Washington from Brussels.
Sondland testified that he kept top members of the Trump administration, including Pompeo, in the loop about Trump’s pressure on Ukraine for investigations.
- 2:25 p.m.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, disputed Sondland’s claim by that he added “two plus two” to conclude that the Trump administration was holding up a planned White House meeting with Ukraine’s new president for a political investigation of Democrats.
One of the president’s top defenders, Jordan said a meeting between Trump and Ukraine’s president eventually happened, the military aid was delivered, and no investigation was announced.
“It’s not two plus two. It’s 0 for three,” Jordan told Sondland.
- 1:35 p.m.
Secretary of State Pompeo dismissed Sondland’s testimony that he was kept informed of an effort to pressure the government of Ukraine for investigations.
Meeting with NATO officials in Brussels, Pompeo said he did not watch Sondland’s testimony.
But the secretary said he was proud of the administration’s work in Ukraine and fully supports it.
He said the Trump administration had strengthened relations with Ukraine and provided it with lethal military equipment to help defend it from Russian aggression.
Pompeo said he won’t recuse himself from the process of producing State Department documents to the House impeachment committee, which has complained none have been released.
- 1:25 p.m.
The Energy Department denied that Energy Secretary Rick Perry knew that President Trump had been pushing for a political investigation in Ukraine.
Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes issued the denial in response to Sondland’s testimony.
Sondland told impeachment investigators that Trump’s attorney Giuliani had let Perry know that Trump wanted Ukraine to publicly promise to investigate a natural gas company that had employed the son of presidential rival Joe Biden.
Hynes said Perry never heard any such mention from anyone before Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president became public. Hynes said Perry talked to Giuliani only once at Trump’s request.
Perry so far has declined to appear before the committee to testify.
- 12:40 p.m.
Sondland disputed other witnesses who recounted frustration and an abrupt ending to a July meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials at the White House.
Sondland said he was “shocked” by testimony from former presidential aide Fiona Hill.
Hill said then-national security adviser John Bolton told her he didn’t want to be a part of any “drug deal” that Sondland and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney were cooking up.
Witnesses have said Sondland brought up investigations sought by Trump in the July meeting. Several witnesses at that meeting testified Bolton abruptly ended it as soon as Sondland raised the issue of investigations.
Sondland said he doesn’t recall an abrupt ending which would have been “memorable.”
- 12:35 p.m.
Sondland insisted he didn’t realize that pushing Ukraine to investigate the gas company Burisma could also mean looking into Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter.
Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board.
And Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has suggested that former Vice President Joe Biden helped shut down an investigation of Burisma to help Hunter Biden. But there’s no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff, asked Sondland: “You never put Burisma together with the Bidens?”
Sondland answered: “I didn’t.”
Sondland said he wasn’t paying attention to what Giuliani “was saying on TV. We were talking to him directly.”
- 11:50 a.m.
President Trump insisted he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine and declared that impeachment hearings should be brought to an end.
The president read from handwritten notes when speaking to reporters on the White House lawn nearly an hour after his scheduled departure time for a trip to Texas.
Trump addressed Ambassador Sondland’s ongoing testimony which linked the president to a decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into a political rival.
But he only highlighted specific, helpful parts from Sondland’s remarks, saying “it is the final word” that he did not demand a quid pro quo.
Trump, who claimed that means “it’s all over” for the impeachment proceedings, did not take questions from reporters.
- 11:45 a.m.
Rep. Schiff said Sondland’s testimony “goes right to the heart of the issue of bribery as well as other potential high crimes and misdemeanors” by the president.
Sondland testified he worked with Trump’s lawyer, Giuliani, on Ukraine at Trump’s “express direction” and pushed a “quid pro quo” with Kyiv because it was what Trump wanted.
Schiff called Sondland’s testimony “a very important moment in the history of this investigation” and said it showed “for the first time that knowledge of this scheme was pervasive.”
Schiff said Secretary of State Pompeo and other officials were aware of the plan to “to condition official acts — on political favors the president wanted for his reelection.”
Schiff added: “And of course at the very top Donald Trump through his personal lawyer was implementing it.”
- 11:35 a.m.
A top aide to Vice President Mike Pence said a conversation with Sondland about a link between military aid to Ukraine and investigations “never happened.”
Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, said Pence never spoke with Sondland “about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations.”
He added that Sondland was “never alone” with Pence during a Sept. 1 trip to Poland. “This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened,” Short said.
Sondland testified he told Pence before the Sept. 1 meetings with Ukrainian officials “that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations.”
- 11:10 a.m.
Sondland said he never heard the president say military aid to Ukraine was conditioned on a public announcement by the Ukrainian president that the country was investigating Democrats.
But Sondland said it was clear that a meeting in the White House was conditioned on investigations.
He also said Trump never told him a White House meeting with the Ukrainian president would not happen without a public announcement. He heard that from Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Sondland said it was a personal guess the military aid was being held up until such an announcement, one that others eventually also made.
Trump said he did nothing wrong and has called the House impeachment inquiry a “kangaroo court.”
- 11:00 a.m.
Sondland questioned details of a July cellphone call with President Trump as recounted by a diplomat who overheard the call at a Kyiv restaurant.
David Holmes said he heard the two men discussing investigations Trump was seeking as Sondland held the phone out. Sondland said it “seems a little strange” that he would hold the phone that way.
Sondland said he doesn’t think he would have told Holmes that Trump only cares about “the big stuff,” as Holmes recounted.
Holmes also said Sondland told Trump the Ukrainian president “loves your ass” — which Sondland said “sounds like something I would say.”
Sondland said that’s how he communicated with Trump: “a lot of four-letter words. In this case three letters.”
- 10:30 a.m.
Sondland said the Trump administration’s anticorruption efforts in Ukraine started off as “vanilla” but that more demands and conditions were later added.
He said as more conditions were added by Trump officials, it became harder to schedule a White House visit for Ukraine’s new president.
He said at one point he asked President Trump what he wanted from Ukraine, and the president said there was no quid pro quo and that he simply wanted Ukraine to do the right thing.
Still, Sondland testified he did not know until September that the president was seeking an investigation into Democratic rival Joe Biden.
- 10:25 a.m.
Sondland said State Department leadership expressed “total support” for his diplomatic efforts on Ukraine.
Sondland said he wrote Secretary of State Pompeo to ask for help in dealing with the “logjam” between Trump and Ukraine’s president after Ukraine became aware the military aid was held up.
In an email, he asked Pompeo for help in figuring out a way for them to move forward on the “issues of importance” for Trump.
Pompeo replied: “Yes.”
Sondland also included an email from Pompeo where he told Sondland he was doing “great work.”
- 10:15 a.m.
Sondland denied he was engaging in “some kind of rogue diplomacy” or that he “muscled” his way into the Ukraine issue.
Other witnesses have been generally consistent in saying Sondland operated a parallel diplomatic effort orchestrated by Trump lawyer Giuliani.
- 10:05 a.m.
Sondland said his recollection of a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian officials at the White House doesn’t square with those of other U.S. officials who have testified before the House committee.
Sondland said he doesn’t recall former White House national security adviser John Bolton cutting the meeting short.
Instead, Sondland said, after the meeting, they all went outside and took photos on the White House lawn.
- 9:50 a.m.
Sondland said his testimony has “not been perfect” because the Trump administration has refused to give him access to calendars, phone records, and other State Department documents that he said might have helped him accurately answer questions.
The U.S. ambassador to the EU said he’s “not a note taker or a memo writer. Never have been.” Any discrepancies in his testimony, he suggested, are due to the lack of documentation.
Sondland, who played a major part in carrying out Trump administration policy toward Ukraine, was testifying under oath and penalty of perjury. He has said in previous testimony he doesn’t recall key details, and what he does remember differs from the recollections of others.
- 9:35 a.m.
Rep. Schiff opened Wednesday’s impeachment hearing with a warning for the Trump administration.
Schiff said the House has “not received a single document” from the administration during its investigation of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. He said Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have made “a concerted and across the board effort” to obstruct the investigation and “they do so at their own peril.”
Democrats have said they are considering an article of impeachment against Trump for obstruction of Congress.
- 9:15 a.m.
Pam Bondi, a presidential adviser assisting on impeachment messaging, said President Trump didn’t know his European Union ambassador very well.
Bondi said on CBS This Morning that Sondland was a “short-term ambassador” and incorrectly described himself as the envoy to Ukraine.
“The president doesn’t know him very well,” she said.
Bondi also said Trump probably won’t offer testimony in the impeachment hearing. The president said earlier in the week that he was weighing submitting written testimony.
- 9:10 a.m.
Sondland testified he “followed the president’s orders” to work with Giuliani.
He said he and his colleagues did not want to involve the president’s personal attorney in diplomacy efforts with Ukraine, but they were told to by the president.
Even though they didn’t like it, they also didn’t think it was improper at the time. Had he known that some of Giuliani’s associations with individuals who are now under criminal indictment, he never would have “acquiesced to his participation.”
Because he believed everything to be above board, they made every effort to keep people informed about the efforts.
He said the suggestion that he and others we were engaged in rogue diplomacy was absolutely false.
- 9:00 a.m.
Sondland said he kept top members of the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Pompeo, in the loop about the president’s pressure on Ukraine for investigations.
In opening remarks, Sondland said it was well-established within the Trump administration there was a quid pro quo involving Ukraine.
He said Giuliani openly discussed how Trump wanted Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and into Burisma — the Ukraine gas company on whose board Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, sat — as a prerequisite for a coveted White House visit for Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Sondland said he laid out the issue in detail to members of State Department, Energy, and Trump administration staff which included Pompeo and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff.
Everyone understood “Trump’s desires and requirements,” Sondland said. “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.”
In October, Pompeo acknowledged for the first time he was one of the people listening in on Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, but disclosed no details and did not indicate he was kept up to date on the Ukraine pressure efforts.
