United States Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said Wednesday that he and his wife had received personal threats and boycotts of his Oregon hotels ahead of his congressional testimony.
“As I understand, they’re going on as we speak,” Sondland said when questioned by Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) during the House impeachment hearing.
Sondland was the founder and former chairman of Provenance Hotels, which have been savaged online and in person after his name was connected with the impeachment investigation.
Pro-impeachment organizers on Twitter posted videos of their protests at Sondland’s hotels on Wednesday, featuring signs calling Sondland “a lying jerk” and demanding that he “tell the truth.”
Sondland also detailed “many” threats from enemies of President Trump.
“We have countless emails apparently to my wife, our properties are being picketed and boycotted,” he said.
Conaway criticized Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) for calling for a boycott of Sondland’s hotels in October:
Anyone who cares about America should not do any business or stay at any of Gordon Sondland’s hotels. Not until he fulfills his duty as a citizen to testify and turn over all relevant documents to the House of Representatives.
Conaway condemned Blumenauer’s statement and asked other members of Congress to join him, pointing out that bullying a witness was “wrong.”
“Mr. Blumenauer should not be using the vast influences that we as members of Congress have to bully you and your businesses and to harm the hundreds or thousands of employees that operate in your business to try to take business away from you, to force you into doing something that they wanted you to do, which was to testify, and you’ve actually done that,” he said.
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