![gordon sondland]()
- Wednesday's impeachment hearings feature three more officials who will testify about President Donald Trump's efforts to strongarm Ukraine into delivering political dirt.
- The officials are: Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the EU; Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Defense; and David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department.
- Sondland's hearing is the day's main event and starts at 9 a.m. ET. He threw everyone under the bus and produced texts and emails that he said show top brass at the White House and State Department were involved in Trump's pressure campaign.
- Cooper and Hale will jointly testify beginning at 2:30 p.m.
- Scroll down to watch the hearings and follow Insider's live coverage.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Congress will hear today from three more officials set to publicly testify about their knowledge of President Donald Trump's efforts to strongarm Ukraine into delivering him political dirt while withholding military aid and a White House meeting.
Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the EU, testified beginning at 9 a.m. ET.
Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, and David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department, will jointly testify at 2:30 p.m.
The hearings will be broadcast live on C-SPAN and the major cable news networks.
Watch the first hearing here:
SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about Trump's impeachment process: What's happened, who the players are, and what comes next
Trump seizes on Sondland's testimony as proof of exoneration
![]()
Trump weighed in on Sondland's hearing as he was still testifying.
"Impeachment Witch Hunt is now OVER!" Trump tweeted.
He then pointed to a conversation Sondland testified about having with Trump in which the ambassador asked Trump what he wanted from Ukraine. Trump said the conversation was proof that there was no quid pro quo.
"I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories. What do you want?" Sondland said he asked Trump. "It was a very abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. He just said, 'I want nothing! I want nothing! I want no quid pro quo! Tell President Zelensky to do the right thing!"
Sondland testified that Trump told him, "Good, go tell the truth."
On Twitter, Trump wrote, "This Witch Hunt must end NOW. So bad for our Country!"
GOP ranking member Devin Nunes says Democrats have 'Watergate fantasies'
![]()
The California Republican's main role throughout the impeachment hearings has been to lob verbal grenades to distract from the matter at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.
A non-exhaustive list of what Nunes talked about on Wednesday and in earlier hearings:
- A Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa
- Ukrainian election interference
- Nude photos of the president
- Ukrainian corruption
- Democratic collusion with Ukraine
- The "Russia hoax"
There is no evidence to support any of Nunes' counter-narratives.
Nunes on Democrats and Watergate fantasies: "Earlier we heard about the — we had the chair looking into the cameras telling the American people, talking about Watergate with their Watergate fantasies. I guess they fantasize about this at night and then they come here and talk about obstruction of justice because they're not giving you documents that you think you should have. So now they've laid out their clear Watergate argument or articles of impeachment."
Sondland implicates Vice President Mike Pence
![]()
Sondland testified that he discussed the Burisma investigation with Pence before Pence met with Zelensky in Poland on September 1.
Pence's office sharply disputed Sondland's testimony.
"Multiple witnesses have testified under oath that Vice President Pence never raised Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden, Crowdstrike, Burisma, or investigations in any conversation with Ukrainians or President Zelensky before, during, or after the September 1 meeting in Poland," Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, said in a statement.
"The Vice President never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or the conditional release of financial aid to Ukraine based upon potential investigations," the statement continued.
Following his September meeting with Zelensky, Pence emphasized that the US wanted Ukraine to crack down on corruption, which Trump has publicly highlighted as being the reason he wanted the Burisma probe.
Trump weighed in on Sondland's testimony by reading off a note written in black Sharpie
![]()
It was a classic Trumpian note.
Here's what it said: "I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zellinsky to do the right thing. This is the final word from the Pres. of the U.S."
Sondland throws Republicans a bone
![]()
Republicans will likely latch onto a key acknowledgement from Sondland that Trump never spoke to him about a Ukraine quid pro quo or withholding military aid.
But there's a caveat: Sondland later said that the reason he didn't talk to Trump because the president told him to speak to Giuliani, and Giuliani made Trump's interests clear.
Giuliani, of course, was the Trump administration's point man in the pressure campaign to demand Zelensky's fledgling government launch politically motivated investigations in exchange for security assistance and a White House meeting.
Democrats and Republicans seize on Sondland's memory lapses to push their own cases
![]()
There's a sharp contrast between Sondland's testimony and that given by the other officials in the impeachment inquiry so far.
The officials who testified before Sondland are career national security and foreign service officials who typically take meticulous contemporaneous notes. As a result, they were able to recall minute details of important events and conversations.
Sondland, on the other hand, does not take notes and that resulted in many gaps in his testimony and an inability to recall certain events.
Still, there were moments in the hearing that both Democrats and Republicans seized on to make their respective cases.
Democrats pointed to Sondland's lack of note-taking to push their case that the White House and State Department should stop withholding documents.
Republicans, meanwhile, said Sondland's memory lapse meant to call his testimony — which has been very damaging to Trump and other senior officials — into question.
Republicans went from praising Sondland to slamming his credibility as a witness
![]()
Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the Republican ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, kicked off his opening statement by railing against Democrats and spreading baseless conspiracy theories about purported Ukrainian election interference.
Nunes characterized the impeachment inquiry as a "circus" dominated by "asinine accusations."
He later added: "Ambassador Sondland, you are here today to be smeared."
A few hours into the hearing, though, Republicans struck a different tone.
Steve Castor, the minority counsel, took a swipe at Sondland's credibility as a witness: "You don't have records, you don't have notes because you don't take notes, and you don't have recollections."
"This is a trifecta of unreliability," Castor added.
Sondland testifies about a July 26 call with Trump about Ukraine and investigations
![]()
Sondland discussed a July 26 phone call between himself and Trump in which the president discussed "investigations" in Ukraine.
David Holmes, a State Department official who was with Sondland when he was on the call, testified that he heard Trump ask Sondland about the status of "the investigations" after Sondland met with a Ukrainian government official in Kyiv.
Sondland said the Ukrainians were "ready to move forward," After the call, Holmes asked Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine.
Sondland replied that Trump "cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for."
On Tuesday, the ambassador confirmed the details of the call, saying, "I have no reason to doubt that this conversation included the subject of investigations."
Sondland also said the White House confirmed the call. But Trump has said he knows "nothing" about it.
Asked about the call at a press conference last week, Trump said, "I know nothing about that. First time I've heard it." When asked if he recalled speaking with Sondland, he continued, "I don't recall. No, not at all. Not even a little bit."
Sondland takes aim at Giuliani: 'Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew these investigations were important to the president.'
![]()
Sondland confirmed that Giuliani's requests "were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky."
"Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 election, DNC server, and Burisma," Sondland said. "Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew these investigations were important to the president."
Burisma Holdings is the Ukrainian natural gas company whose board employed former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, until earlier this year. Trump has claimed he pushed for Ukrainian prosecutors to investigate Burisma because of corruption issues, but several officials have testified that Trump wanted to target the Bidens through an investigation of Burisma.
Sondland's reference to the 2016 election and DNC server relates to Trump's demand that Ukraine investigate a bogus conspiracy theory suggesting it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the election.
The ambassador went on to say that in July and August, "we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine."
Sondland said he was opposed to suspending the aid and "tried diligently" to find out why it was frozen but "never received a clear answer."
He said he later learned 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: The three amigos worked with Rudy Giuliani 'at the express direction' of Trump
![]()
Sondland testified that he, outgoing energy secretary Rick Perry, and former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker "worked with Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States."
Giuliani is Trump's personal lawyer who spearheaded the Ukraine pressure campaign.
"We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani," Sondland testified. "Simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt."
Sondland added that while they didn't feel the need to involve Giuliani, they didn't believe his role was "improper."
"If I had known all of Mr. Giuliani's dealings, or associations, with individuals, some of whom are now under criminal investigation, I would not have personally acquiesced" to working with the former New York mayor, Sondland said.
He was referring to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two of Giuliani's Ukrainian associates who were indicted last month for campaign finance violations. Both men helped facilitate Giuliani's efforts to get Ukraine to deliver political dirt to Trump.
They also aided Giuliani in engineering the ouster of Masha Yovanovitch, the US's ambassador to Ukraine who was abruptly recalled in May after she refused to help Giuliani carry out his shadow foreign policy agenda.
"Precisely because we did not think we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decision makers at the National Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts," Sondland testified. "The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular and rogue diplomacy is absolutely false."
Sondland implicates Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton
![]()
Sondland took aim at Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his testimony. He also confirmed Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine by conditioning military aid and the White House meeting on Zelensky delivering him the investigations he wanted.
"Members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?" Sondland's opening statement said. "As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes."
In a twist, Sondland also targeted former national security adviser John Bolton in his testimony. Bolton has largely emerged as a key White House figure opposed to the shadow foreign policy that Sondland and several other Trump allies were running in Ukraine.
Multiple officials have testified about a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials that Bolton abruptly ended when Sondland began discussing the fact that an Oval Office visit for Zelensky was predicated on him launching politically motivated investigations.
Fiona Hill, the National Security Council's former senior director in charge of Russian and Eurasian affairs, testified that Bolton told her to flag the meeting to the NSC's chief lawyer, John Eisenberg.
Hill added that Bolton told her to convey to Eisenberg that he was not part of the "drug deal" that Sondland and the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, were "cooking up" in Ukraine.
Sondland produces emails incriminating Pompeo
![]()
Sondland showed up at Wednesday's hearing with new text messages and emails that he claims prove that top brass at the White House and State Department were involved in Trump's pressure campaign.
One of those emails was between Sondland, Pompeo, and Lisa Kenna, a career State Department aide.
In the email, sent on August 22, Sondland wrote to Pompeo, "Should we block time in Warsaw for a short pull-aside for Potus to meet [Ukrainian President Volodymr] Zelensky?"
"I would ask Zelensky to look him in the eye and tell him that once Ukraine's new justice folks are in place (mid-Sept) [Zelensky] should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to Potus and to the US," he wrote. "Hopefully, that will break the logjam."
Pompey replied: "Yes."
Sondland's reference to the "logjam" was likely related to the fact that Ukrainian officials had become aware at that time that the US had ordered a freeze on military aid.
What Sondland said behind closed doors
![]()
The hotel executive was given an ambassadorship after donating $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee and has emerged as the primary link between Trump and Ukraine in the saga so far. Sondland already testified to Congress behind closed doors once but went back and amended his testimony after it was contradicted by Bill Taylor, the US's chief envoy in Ukraine, in a closed session.
Since Sondland corrected his testimony to acknowledge a quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine, Taylor and one of his top aides, David Holmes, have testified that the president and Sondland had a phone call on July 26 during which they discussed that the "big" topics Trump cared about with respect to Ukraine were the "Biden investigations."
Sondland apparently had the conversation with Trump while he was out to dinner with Holmes at a restaurant in Kyiv on July 26, and Trump was speaking loudly enough on the phone that Sondland had to hold the device away from his ear. Two officials, in addition to Holmes, are said to have overheard the call.
Because he was in contact with the president throughout the entire Ukraine scandal, Sondland is one of the most significant witnesses against Trump.
The EU ambassador will likely corroborate Holmes' statements in his public testimony on Wednesday. If he does so, it will establish the most direct link yet between the president and the effort to bully Ukraine into delivering political investigations in exchange for critical military aid and a White House meeting.
What Cooper and Hale told lawmakers behind closed doors
![]()
Cooper is expected to tell lawmakers about how the Ukrainians were concerned as early as August about Trump's decision to freeze a $391 million security assistance package.
At the time, Trump and his allies were pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly commit to investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for purported corruption. The president also wanted Zelensky to pledge to look into a bogus conspiracy theory suggesting it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election and that it did so to benefit the Democrats.
Cooper will testify that she spoke to Kurt Volker, who at the time was the US's Special Representative to Ukraine, about Ukrainian officials' concerns, and that Volker told her he was working with them to put out a statement disavowing election interference.
Hale testified behind closed doors on November 6 and told lawmakers about how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior State Department officials refused to robustly push back on Trump's smear campaign against Marie Yovanovitch, the US's former ambassador to Ukraine, for political reasons.
He is also expected to tell Congress on Wednesday that officials were worried about the blowback they'd get from Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who engineered Yovanovitch's removal.
