House Republicans on Wednesday seized on Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s acknowledgment that he was only “presuming” that President Trump had linked a White House visit and release of military aid to Ukraine on probes that could help him politically.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee zeroed in on that statement to attack Sondland’s credibility.
Ohio GOP Rep. Mike Turner grilled Sondland over whether anyone told him that Trump “tied the investigation to the aid” to Ukraine.
“I have said repeatedly, congressman, that I was presuming,” Sondland replied.
“No one on this planet told you that Donald Trump was tying this aid to the investigation? Yes or no?” Turner asked.
“Yes,” Sondland answered.
“You’re just assuming all of these things and then giving them the evidence that they’re running out and doing press conferences and CNN headline says the president tied aid to investigations and you don’t know that, correct?” Turner asked.
“I never said the president of the United States should be impeached,” Sondland replied.
“No, but you left people with the confusing impression you were giving testimony you did not. You do not have any evidence that the president was tied to holding aid from Ukraine,” he declared.
He also testified that Trump had told him that he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine in exchange for a White House meeting and military aid that was being held up.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan also aggressively pursued the point even as Sondland broke into laughter, apparently at Jordan’s high-octane delivery.
“I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this and you told [GOP staff counsel Steve] Castor that the president never told you that the announcement had to happen to get anything. In fact, he didn’t just not tell you that, he explicitly said the opposite,” Jordan asserted.
“You said to the president of the United States, ‘What do you want from Ukraine? The president [said] ‘I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelensky to do the right thing. I want him to do what he ran on,” continued Jordan, one of the president’s most ardent defenders.
Upstate New York Rep. Elise Stefanik also piled on.
“You testified in fact, ‘Mr. Trump never told me directly the aid was conditioned on the investigations. You said, ‘never heard those words from the president. Instead, you testified that in your September call with President Trump said, ‘No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I want nothing,” she said.
Sondland acknowledged that she was correct.
The call — which was first reported in October after Sondland’s closed-door testimony — came the same day that Congress launched an investigation into whether Trump was witholding the military aid until Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to launch the probes that could benefit the president politically.
Rep. Adam Schiff mocked the line of attack, noting that the Congressionally approved aid to Ukraine was released only after team Trump “got caught” withholding it.
“My colleagues seem to be under the impression that unless the president spoke the words, ‘Ambassador Sondland, I am bribing the Ukrainian president,’ that there is no evidence of bribery. If he didn’t say, ‘Ambassador Sondland, I’m telling you, I’m not going to give the aid unless they do this,’ that there’s no evidence of a quid pro quo on military aid,” Schiff said.
“They also seem to say that, ‘Well, they [Ukraine] got the money. The money may have been conditioned, but they got the money.’ ”
“Yes, they got caught,” Schiff said sharply. “They got caught.”
Schiff, chair of the Intel committee, asked Sondland whether he was aware that the hold on aid was lifted after Congress announced an investigation.