It didn’t take long for European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland to throw President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, under the bus today.
It remains to be seen what, if any, permanent damage Sondland may do to Trump.
Sondland told House impeachment investigators today that Giuliani was pushing a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine and that he had to go along with it because it’s what Trump wanted.
“Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president,” Sondland testified.
“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani,” the ambassador said. But he said Trump told him and other diplomats working on Ukraine issues “talk with Rudy” on those matters. “So we followed the president’s orders.”
Sondland also confirmed for House impeachment investigators he spoke with Trump on a cellphone from a busy Kyiv restaurant the day after the president prodded Ukraine’s leader to investigate political rival Joe Biden.
And Sondland, the most anticipated witness in the inquiry, said he kept Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top administration officials aware of what was going on.
He said he specifically told Vice President Mike Pence he “had concerns” that U.S. military aid to Ukraine “had become tied” to the investigations.
“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland testified in opening remarks. “It was no secret.”
The ambassador’s account of the recently revealed call supports the testimony of multiple witnesses who have spoken to impeachment investigators over the past week.
Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats as he was withholding military aid to the East European nation is at the center of the impeachment probe.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.