Sondland opening statement obtained by @GloriaBorger: “First, Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani...
2/“... Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.
3/“Second, although we disagreed with the need to involve Mr. Giuliani, we did not believe that his role was improper at the time. As I previously testifed, if I had known of all of Mr. Giuliani’s dealings or of his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment...
4/“I would not have acquiesced to his participation. Still, given what we knew at the time, what we were asked to do did not appear to be wrong...
5/“Third, let me say: precisely because we did not think that we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decisionmakers at the National
Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts...
Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts...
