U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified during Wednesday’s hearing before the House Intelligence Committee that at the time, “no one shared any concerns” with him regarding President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Sondland said during his opening statement on Wednesday that “no one ever shared any concerns” regarding the July 25 phone call at the center of the partisan impeachment inquiry.
“On July 25, 2019, Presidents Trump and Zelensky had their official call. I was not on the call. In fact, I first read the transcript on September 25, the same day it was publicly released,” Sondland said during his opening statement.
“All I had heard at the time was that the call had gone well,” he continued. “Looking back, I find it very odd that neither I nor Ambassador Taylor nor Ambassador Volker ever received a detailed read-out of that call with the Biden references.”
“Now, there are people who say they had concerns about that call. No one shared any concerns about the call with me at the time, when it would have been very helpful to know,” Sondland added:
Sondland: “no one shared any concerns about the call with me at the time”https://t.co/QInybSOgHG pic.twitter.com/1Z4f0rpc1m
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 20, 2019
The phone call, the defense appropriation, the “whistleblower”—they’ve all been flushed down the memory hole by Democrats. Their entire case now is “Trump didn’t give a foreigner a meeting.” The original goalposts aren’t even in the same hemisphere today. https://t.co/Abm6QZg0A0
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 20, 2019
Sondland repeatedly stated that President Trump never told him directly that security aid was contingent on an investigation into the Bidens:
Sondland: "I never heard from President Trump that aid was conditioned on an announcement of [investigations]."
Goldman: "So you never heard those specific words."
Sondland: "Right. Never heard those words."
Goldman: "Well, let's move ahead…"#ImpeachmentInquiry
— Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) November 20, 2019
From EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland:
President Trump never told me directly the aid was conditioned…The aid was my own personal guess, to use the analogy, two-plus-two..I never heard from President Trump that aid was conditioned on investigations..I never heard those words— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) November 20, 2019
Sondland: "President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings."
"Never heard those words," he added.
— Ben Siegel (@benyc) November 20, 2019
SONDLAND tells Dem Attorney: “I never heard from President @realDonaldTrump that aid was conditioned on an announcement.”
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) November 20, 2019
Sondland previously in his own words ⬇️
– @realDonaldTrump “said, ‘I want nothing. I want no Quid Pro Quo. I want Zelensky to do the right thing.’”
– @realDonaldTrump “kept repeating no quid pro quo over and over again. ”
End of story.
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) November 20, 2019
Sondland’s claim that Trump never told him aid was conditioned on an investigation into the Bidens coincides with the testimony former diplomat Kurt Volker offered on Tuesday:
“Did the President of the United States ever say to you that he was not going to allow aid from the United States to go to the Ukraine unless there were investigations into Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) asked Volker.
“No, he did not,” Volker said.
Turner continued:
Did the Ukrainians ever tell you that they understood that they would not get a meeting with the President of the United States, a phone call with the President of the United States, military aid, or foreign aid from the United States unless they undertook investigations of Burisma, the Bidens, or the 2016 elections?
“No, they did not,” Volker said.
“Pretty much, Ambassador Volker, you just, like, took apart their entire case,” Turner said.
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