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Envoy links top Trump officials to Ukraine probes

By HENG WEILI in New York | China Daily Global | Updated: 2019-11-21 23:12

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland looks at photographers as he returns to the witness table from a break in his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. Sondland testified during a public impeachment hearing to determine if President Donald Trump connected US aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. [PHOTO/AGENCIES]

EU ambassador testifies that Pence, Pompeo, Perry aware of attempts to seek probe of Biden, son

The US ambassador to the European Union testified Wednesday that top Trump administration officials were involved in efforts to pressure Ukraine to conduct two probes that would benefit President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

The envoy, Gordon Sondland, in the fourth day of public hearings in an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives, said he "followed the president's orders" to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer.

The efforts by Giuliani to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter "were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit" for the Ukrainian leader, Sondland said.

Sondland also depicted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as engaged in attempts to make the investigations happen, including one targeting the Bidens. Sondland also said Vice-President Mike Pence was aware of the efforts.

"Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret," Sondland said in an email he sent to top administration officials before the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy that is the basis of the impeachment inquiry.

Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney were among the recipients of the email in which Sondland discussed Zelenskiy's willingness to "run a fully transparent investigation".

Sondland said he told Pence he was concerned that the freeze of $391 million in security aid to Ukraine was part of the pressure campaign. The aid was approved by Congress to help Ukraine fight separatists backed by Russia. Pence's chief of staff denied the conversation took place.

Sondland, who contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration before he was appointed to his diplomatic post, also testified that the president did not directly ask for a quid pro quo.

"President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the investigations," Sondland said under questioning. "The aid was my own personal guess based, again, on your analogy, two plus two equals four."

As both sides spun Sondland's testimony, Democrats focused on his implication of top White House officials, while Republicans sought to emphasize the lack of a direct request by Trump.

"I believe I just asked him (Trump) an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman," Sondland said, in response to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is presiding over the inquiry. "What do you want from Ukraine?

"'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelenskiy to do the right thing.' Something to that effect," Sondland said Trump had replied.

"You can't find the time to fit that in a 23-page opening statement?" Republican Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio asked Sondland.

Trump, in a visit Wednesday to an Apple assembly plant in Austin, Texas, accompanied by CEO Tim Cook, railed against the impeachment proceedings and the media and praised the strength of the US economy.

"Some of the fair press, of which there isn't too much, said 'this (impeachment) thing is over'," Trump said. "We have a phony press — they're dishonest."

In the July call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to carry out two investigations. One involved Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The other involved a theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

Sondland described Trump in May telling him, along with Perry and then-US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, to work with Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, on Ukraine policy.

"We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the president's orders," Sondland said.

The investigation could lead the Democratic-led House to approve formal charges against Trump — called articles of impeachment — that would be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial on whether to remove him from office. Few Republican senators have broken with Trump.

Sondland provided correspondence showing he and Pompeo communicated about his effort to get Zelenskiy to commit to undertake investigations as a way to free up the security aid, which was provided in September after the controversy had become public.

"All good. You're doing great work; keep banging away," Pompeo told Sondland in early September, according to email correspondence cited in his testimony.

Pompeo, on a visit to Brussels, ignored reporters' questions about Sondland's testimony.

Sondland said he told Pence in September "that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations".

"The vice president nodded, he heard what I said, and that was pretty much it," Sondland testified.

Sondland testified he was "adamantly opposed" to the suspension of the security aid because "the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression".

"In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded," Sondland testified.

While Trump is not expected to oust Pompeo, one of his staunchest supporters, over the testimony by Sondland, Pompeo has been widely reported to be considering a run for Senate from his home state of Kansas next year.

Two senior US officials said the testimony puts Pompeo in a more difficult position with both State Department career staff and international counterparts. He has already faced criticism internally for refusing to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry and for not defending Foreign Service officers who have testified.

"It's hard to see him riding this out," said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"He's in an unsustainable position," added a former senior US diplomat, who requested anonymity.

Reuters contributed to this story.

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