When I said I didn’t I meant I did

Nov 5th, 2019 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Gordon Sondland suddenly remembered he’d got it exactly opposite. Gosh he’ll forget his own name next! Isn’t memory a funny thing!

Gordon Sondland, President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, reversed himself in new testimony to House impeachment investigators, saying he does believe military aid for Ukraine was contingent upon the launch of politically motivated probes.

In his revised statement, Sondland said he told a top Ukrainian official on Sept. 1 that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the beleaguered U.S. ally would “likely” be held up unless the government announced investigations of Trump’s political rivals.

Oh well fortunately it wasn’t a crucial point in the impeachment inquiry, no more significant than what color socks he was wearing that day. Was military aid that Ukraine needed for survival (given Putin’s attacks) used to force Ukraine to do Trump’s bidding, or not? No biggy. Nothing rides on the answer to that question.

The acknowledgment of a potential quid pro quo is an explosive shift that threatens to upend claims by Trump allies that military aid was not used as a bludgeon to advance Trump’s domestic political interests.

Sondland revealed the exchange in supplemental testimony he submitted to House impeachment investigators on Monday, saying he had failed to recall the episode when he testified in person last month.

Or had decided he actually didn’t want to be charged with perjury thanks all the same.

During a meeting in Warsaw, Sondland said, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised his concerns directly to Vice President Mike Pence about the suspension of military aid to the besieged eastern European country. Sondland added that he later told Andriy Yermak, a top Ukrainian national security adviser, that the aid would be contingent on Trump’s desired investigations.

“After that large meeting, I now recall speaking individually with Mr. Yermak, where I said that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland wrote in his addendum, which was released on Tuesday alongside a nearly 400-page transcript of his previous testimony.

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