The additions Mr. Sondland made to his testimony were significant because they were the first admission by a senior figure who had direct contact with Mr. Trump that the military aid for Ukraine was being held hostage to the president’s demands for investigations into his political rivals.
So when Trump demands to know who’s blowing the whistle on him, just give him Sondland’s name.
A wealthy Oregon hotelier who donated to the president’s campaign and was rewarded with the plum diplomatic post, Mr. Sondland can hardly be dismissed as a “Never Trumper.”
Why is the Times pretending that Trump needs to make sense?
Has there been any prediction on who/how many in this administration could end up in legal jeopardy over this extortion?
It seems to me that Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Giuliani, Mulvaney and Eisenberg are in deep. Any thoughts on who else may be in trouble?
Yes they are continuously getting halfway to infinity…never quite there. Sondland needs to just break. He doesn’t have a whole lotta explaining to do, he has a whole lotta RATTING to do. Get going!
No kidding. With every question from Congress, it became more obvious that Sondland just drifted through his days, not taking notes, not recording significant meetings or decisions, couldn’t remember anything, barely aware of what was going on around him.
The way I see it Sondland paid $1M for a hotshot job where he and wifey got to gallivant around Europe and blow half a million in taxpayer dough to unnecessarily redecorate their mansion.
The transaction was: pay money, get cushy gig. In trumpworld, trump owes Sondland nothing. If Sondland stops kissing Donnie’s ass, he gets booted.
In three new pages of sworn testimony released Tuesday, along with his entire deposition earlier in October, EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland wrote that the depositions of top Ukraine diplomat Bill Taylor and outgoing National Security Council official Tim Morrison “have refreshed my recollection” of the conversations at the center of the pressure campaign.
His memory was refreshed that he had previously committed perjury.
His memory was refreshed that he didn’t want to go under the bus.
The word from others involved was Giuliani AND SONDLAND were running a shadow diplomacy, or off-the-books scam. Doesn’t sound to me like he was just a useless buffoon and an expendable cog. I hope they really put the clamps to him and make him squeal. I am sure he knows lots more, was involved in lots more. I hope his minimalist squeakings and “oh, now I remember…thanks for reminding me” crap gets leveraged into “everyone is saying YOU were running this and they’re hanging ALL of it on YOU”
Excellent. There should be a laugh button for this and several other comments about Sondland.