In a significant revision to his testimony nearly three weeks ago before House impeachment investigators, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, now says he told a Ukrainian official that security assistance to the country would be likely to resume only if the authorities in Kyiv opened investigations requested by President Trump that could be damaging to former vice president Joe Biden.
In a “supplemental declaration” provided to the House impeachment inquiry Monday, Sondland wrote, “I now recall speaking individually” with a Ukrainian official and in that conversation saying “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, a Trump donor turned diplomat, had been seen as a loyalist of the president with a supportive version of events — that Trump was trying to combat corruption broadly in a country that depends on U.S. aid to defend itself against Russian aggression. Sondland’s assertion in a previously released text message to a senior State Department official that Trump didn’t seek “quid pro quo’s of any kind” was seized upon by Republicans to argue that the president had not used the power of his office for personal political gain.
Of course, I wanted something on Biden,
but I never said, “Just make shit up.”
I told Ukraine, “Take what Junior did,
replace his name with Hunter's.
Proof absolute Joe Biden's corrupt.”
I distinctly recall (now) those conversations
where I “suggest” quid quo pro:
Ukraine provides required information.
If not I say where they can go
shove it (their country).
Love it. The effrontery.
America made to look great.
The Ukes left to their fate.
In Putin's hands,
they do what he demands
just as he planned
and as he expected
when he went out and got Donnie elected.