4213095Pence chief of staff fires back at Sondland: That conversation never happened; Update: “Trifecta of unreliability”? hotair.com/archives/ed-mo…
In a statement sent out widely to media via e-mail, chief of staff Marc Short blasted Sondland’s testimony as false. The conversation that Sondland described “never happened,” according to Short:
“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.
“Ambassador Gordon Sondland was never alone with Vice President Pence on the September 1 trip to Poland. This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened.
“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 Zelensky before, during, or after the September 1 meeting in Poland.”
This should be rather easy to determine. Does anyone have security logs for Pence in Poland, which would likely document Pence’s movements and those around him? Surely Pence had his staff around during this trip, too.
If Sondland wasn’t alone with Pence, then his story begins to look a little suspect.
But even if he was alone with Pence, this still doesn’t prove much of anything. Sondland didn’t testify that Pence told him anything about a quid pro quo, just that he “nodded” at Sondland’s concerns over the potential for one.
As Short notes, no one has suggested that Pence pushed anything of the sort; indeed, testimony already exists that Pence never linked anything to aid, nor was inclined to do so.
