After hearing Tuesday from three people who listened in on President Trump's July 25 phone call with the leader of Ukraine, lawmakers will take testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who helped to coordinate efforts in Ukraine with President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Sondland will certainly have to address a phone call he supposedly made from a restaurant in Ukraine - on an unsecured cell phone - where he spoke to President Trump, who made clear he wanted to know if Ukraine was going to announce it had started investigations into the Bidens, and a 2016 conspiracy theory that Ukraine - and not Russia - had hacked Democrats during the elections.
“Ambassador Sondland is a big personality,” said former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who testified a day earlier.
Follow along with developments here:
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8:00 am. A reminder of the testimony so far, is that Sondland called up President Trump from a restaurant in Ukraine, and spoke to him on an unsecured cell phone. In that call, US embassy staffer David Holmes testified that he could easily hear the President's voice, and hear what was being discussed with Sondland - investigations - which Mr. Trump wanted from the Ukraine government.
Holmes tells Jordan there's no doubt he heard the President press Sondland about Ukraine beginning the investigations Mr. Trump wanted pic.twitter.com/NleNIgHbM0
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) November 19, 2019
7:50 am. The Sondland phone call with President Trump is going to get a lot of attention today - and rightfully so.
.@JoaquinCastrotx asks re July 26 call and whether Volker doubted Sondland’s claims re having a direct line to Trump.
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) November 20, 2019
Volker: “Sondland is a big personality and sometimes says things that might be bigger than life...
But “I believed that he could speak with the president.”
7:45 am. Most readers probably know Sondland's name from the impeachment / Ukraine controversy, but don't really know all of the details. There's some interesting stuff which has GOP lawmakers a bit uneasy, because the script today may not be that obvious at first.
Sondland, a wealthy hotelier Trump tapped as his ambassador to the European Union, is more directly entangled than any witness yet in the Republican president’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and Democrats in the 2016 election. https://t.co/jOoEyt6XtV
— Eric Tucker (@etuckerAP) November 20, 2019
7:35 am. It's not just Gordon Sondland testifying today. And there is another hearing on Thursday. Like Tuesday, it would be no surprise for me if the hearings are still going at 8 pm - which is when the Democratic debate in Atlanta is set to begin. That would a split screen political Super Bowl.
These are the witnesses who have yet to publicly testify this week in the impeachment inquiry:
— NPR (@NPR) November 20, 2019
Wednesday:
- Gordon Sondland
- Laura Cooper
- David Hale
Thursday:
- Fiona Hill
- David Holmeshttps://t.co/meQdWSpiQ4
Cox Media Group