By Amber Phillips (TWP)
Thursday’s impeachment news, in a quote: “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: 'Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
That’s European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland and one of President Trump’s point people on Ukraine saying yeah, there was a quid pro quo for Ukraine’s president to get a meeting and a phone call with Trump: They had to announce investigations into Democrats.
So Sondland went about trying to set that up this summer, later realizing military aid was also being withheld until Ukraine announced investigations into Trump’s rivals.
Why this is big
Up until this point, witnesses have been testifying that Sondland was the one communicating a quid pro quo to Ukrainians. They abruptly shut down meetings when he brought it up, or they texted Sondland their concerns that this was “crazy,” or they called him the “Gordon problem” within the White House.
Sondland got on the stand and didn’t take the fall. Instead he pointed at Trump. He testifies he was acting “at the express direction of the president of the United States.”
And he testified that senior officials like Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton all knew about it too. “They knew what we were doing and why," Sondland said.
