Posted on 11/20/2019 7:27:46 AM PST by pilgrim
“At all times, I was acting in good faith,” Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland told Congress in his opening statement at Wednesday’s hearing of the House intelligence committee:
“As a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the president. We worked with Mr. Giuliani because the President directed us to do so. We had no desire to set any conditions on the Ukrainians.”
But Giuliani did set conditions, Sondland said in his statement.
On the question, was there a quid pro quo? Sondland answered, “yes.”
“As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Sondland said Giuliani told Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Ambassador Kurt Volker and others “that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election.
“Mr. Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians. Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.”
Sondland said his personal view, which he “shared repeatedly with others,” was that the White House meeting and military assistance should have proceeded without preconditions.
“Our only interest was to advance longstanding U.S. policy and to support Ukraine’s fragile democracy.” Sondland said he learned “in July and August” that the White House had suspended security aid to Ukraine:
“I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid,” he said. “I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer. 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.
“I shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aid with Senator Ron Johnson. And I also shared my concerns with the Ukrainians,” Sondland said.
Sondland also described President Trump’s skepticism toward Ukraine: “He expressed concerns that the Ukrainian government was not serious about reform. He even mentioned that Ukraine tried to take him down in the last election.”
Sondland confirmed he made a call to President Trump from a Kiev restaurant on July 26.
“I remember I was at a restaurant in Kiev, and I have no reason to doubt that this conversation included the subject of investigations.”
Sondland said he knew that investigations were “important to President Trump.”
However, Sondland said he has no recollection of discussing the Bidens on that phone call. He did not dispute other witness accounts of the call, which Trump said he does not remember.
“I know nothing about that,” Trump told a news conference on Nov. 13.
Treaty Between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters,”
negotiated by then-President William Clinton and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2000.
========================================
Perhaps the Clintons do not want their activities with Ukraine exposed?
<><> A 2015 WSJ report includes a chart of “foreign donors” to the Clinton Foundation showing “Ukraine” as a top donor among a list of large donors including “foreign individuals and their foundations and companies” while Clinton was secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013.
<><> Victor Pinchuk, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian and businessman whose father-in-law is a former president of Ukraine is a connected Ukrainian who served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union.is a connected Ukrainian who served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union.”
<><> The Clinton Foundation publicly reports, and its foundation spokesman confirmed, that other foreign entities have given more than the Pinchuk Foundation (which is listed as having given between $10 million and $25 million).
<><> Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation based in Kiev, Ukraine, the Journal reported.
<><> In 2008, “Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative (a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects) “to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation.
<><> Several alumni of the Clinton program are current members of the Ukrainian Parliament.
<><> Ukranian Pinchuk was especially generous-—not only blanketing the Clinton Foundation with money, he hired Hillary for a $300,00 speech to help him boost Ukraine’s creds; even Chelsea got into the act.
<><> CIRCA 2013——Ukranian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk hires Hillary to give a speech at a Ukraine forum discussing regime change, exiting Russia....and hitting up the US for more foreign aid.
<><> Was it done in pursuit of criminal justice, or to dig political dirt?
I made this point at the start. And it should have been Trump's position all along.
Also makes the request to Ukraine not only legal, but required by treaty....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3795238/posts
MPs demand Zelensky, Trump investigate suspicion of U.S.-Ukraine corruption involving $7.4 bln
Interfax-Ukraine ^ | November 20, 2019
When word got out that Trump was checking on the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine, wanting accountability for US tax dollars, the Swamp went Code Red. Trump was on it like white on rice——US tax dollars were blanketing the Ukraine—— circling around from the US Treasury, to Ukraine and back into DEM coffers.
A frickin’ DNC slush fund.
<><> eager for new sexual conquests, Hunter Biden got going as the bag man,
<><> Burisma was the money laundry,
<><> US tax dollars were funneled back to Joe, Obama, and the obedient Swamp.
The Dems saw their Ukraine money pot dwindling and were about to get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Trump figured it out, ergo impeachment was launched to protect their dirty deeds.
Nice take——yet any admissions from Trump in the hands of Schifty and Piglosi is more ammunition for their twisted impeachment plans.
You don't defend yourself until you see what someone is actually going to accuse you of doing.
Thanks for your opinion on quid. The committee will take yours and the 350 million or so other opinions into account.
A “quid pro quo” to withhold aid in order to investigate corruption sounds sane and just to me.
But none of those witnesses were "on" the call, were they?
The president put a hold on the money because he didn’t trust the corrupt Ukrainian government with American tax dollars. President Trump has every right to hold money if he doesn’t think the government receiving it is spending it legally.
Sondland is ambassador to the EU. Has absolutely nothing to do with Ukrainian Policy.....and should not be passing anything on to Ukraine in that regard.
“I do not recall!”
“Not to my remembrance!” </s>
Think he said that Ukraine was a part of his portfolio.
iirc, Ukraine is not part of the EU.
I'm thinking all these new ambassadors knew nothing about it and no one told the President about it either.
Of course, the highlight would be that it wasn't worth the paper that it was printed on.....Poroshenko was just as corrupt as the previous administration.
7:59 PM - Nov 3, 2019
Perfect.
He just said to Schiff “No quid pro quo”
CNN just had a headline proclaiming “Sondland says he has no direct knowledge of Trump involvement...”
So why is anyone paying attention to this bullshit?
“This is getting clearer and clearer.
Giuliana is the rotten apple here!
Trump should never have trusted him.
I haven’t been able to stomach him for YEARS.
I think he’s saying trump wants this or that and it’s what GIULIANI wants. And Trump trusted him.”
I respectfully disagree. My take is that Guiliani was a back channel that Trump could trust, plus he’s Trumps private attorney. If you can’t rely on the prosecution to seek the truth, you rely on the defense lawyer to do that. (Perry Mason 101).
Sondland is substituting his judgment for Trump’s about the conduct of foreign policy. He is a Department of State puke. He doesn’t get that he advises, the President decides.
Guiliani was more likely operating from a criminal/DoJ point of view and Trump was acting in his capacity of chief law enforcer - enforcing American law. DoS has no competency in that area and Sondland should have gone quietly into the night.
None of this is getting past AG Barr. If this goes to the Senate, it will have massive repercussions on the DoS and the CIA. I hope in the end that the CIA gets disbanded. They are a government within a government and they have the means to control a narrative by selective leaks and tainting the truth to drive a specific message. They and the DoS comprise the worlds biggest criminal gang.
In this whole affair the DoS and intelligence communities come out very badly, along with the House of Representatives, that seems to be claiming ultimate jurisdiction over foreign policy - of course only to suit their own agendas.
The DoS, CIA, Democrat Party, and the MSM have been in collusion since the Obama administration and the House of Representatives is attempting to put a veneer of respectability over those activities and prevent the real truth from coming out.
My belief is that the Congressional Democrats intend to carpet bomb the American public with distorted truths all the way to the next election. It’s their only hope for defeating Trump.
They will even distort what comes out in a Senate trial, claiming the Republicans are aiding and abetting corruption. Since the MSM has no integrity, they will parrot those accusations to the American demographic most susceptible to that carpet bombing - the female demographic.
One good takeaway from the Sondland testimony is that any perceived or real quid pro quo wasn’t about the 2020 election, but the 2016 election - not about getting “dirt” on Biden, but to investigate real crimes.
The only real hope in this is Barr getting convictions in a court of law prior to the election next year. I think he has to indict and convict both Bidens. Hopefully the Ukrainians are helping build the case. It’s starting to look as if there is significant financial corruption in play - money laundering included. Bribery and extortion are also in play, but it wasn’t Trump perpetrating those crimes, it was Biden, the DoS, and very likely the CIA.
Anyway, that’s my take.
”Quid pro quo” is literally the basis for how foreign policy has been conducted since the beginning of time.
Why President Trump’s people haven’t been arguing this point is a mystery to me.
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