"Everyone was in the loop" and "We followed the president's orders," were two statements Trump's ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland gave during his public testimony today regarding the efforts to push Ukraine to announce a political investigation: americanoversight.org/sondlands-test…
And by everyone, he meant: Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, and of course, the president himself.
Sondland's testimony suggested that an announcement by Zelensky of an investigation into a company linked to Hunter Biden — and the political hay Trump could presumably make out of it — was what the president wanted, not an actual investigation being conducted.
Sondland's testimony also underscored the State Department's stonewalling of the impeachment investigation. He noted that he had trouble obtaining documents, and said: "My lawyers and I have made multiple requests to the State Department and the White House for these materials.
The State Department's obstruction of congressional oversight has been a theme throughout the public impeachment hearings. Sondland said the department "refused to share these materials with this Committee," and Adam Schiff expressed similar frustrations.
"We have not received a single document from the State Department," Schiff said. "Those documents bear directly on this investigation and this impeachment inquiry."
But the department's obstruction efforts could be crumbling. Friday is the deadline for the agency to release several categories of documents included in our lawsuit for records related to Ukraine, Giuliani, and the recall of Amb. Marie Yovanovitch: americanoversight.org/state-departme…
Notably, Sondland said that the State Department "should take responsibility for Ukraine matters" and emphasized that the State Department leadership was "fully supportive" of the efforts in Ukraine, including attempts to secure a "commitment to investigations."
Read more about Sondland's public testimony on our website and be on the lookout for the Nov. 22 court deadline for the State Department to search for and produce documents in response to our lawsuit: americanoversight.org/sondlands-test…
