zzstar, if this proves true, Sondland should be held in contempt for lying to congress, again & face time in prison.
Witness testimony and records raise questions about account of Trump’s ‘no quid pro quo’ call
By Aaron C. Davis, Elise Viebeck and Josh Dawsey
November 27, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. EST
President Trump was cranky when they spoke on the phone in September, Ambassador Gordon Sondland told members of Congress, but his words were clear: Trump wanted no quid pro quo with Ukraine.
“This is Ambassador Sondland speaking to me,” Trump said outside the White House last week, looking down to read notes he’d taken of Sondland’s testimony. “Here’s my response that he just gave: ‘I want nothing. . . . I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.’ ”
Sondland’s recollection of a phone conversation that he said took place on Sept. 9 has emerged as a centerpiece of Trump’s defense as House Democrats argue in an impeachment inquiry that he abused his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
However, no other witness testimony or documents have emerged that corroborate Sondland’s description of a call that day.
Trump himself, in describing the conversation, has referred only to the ambassador’s account of the call, which — based on Sondland’s activities — would have occurred before dawn in Washington. And the White House has not located a record in its switchboard logs of a call between Trump and Sondland on Sept. 9, according to an administration official who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
But there is evidence of another call between Trump and Sondland that occurred a few days earlier — one with a very different thrust, in which the president made clear that he wanted his Ukrainian counterpart to personally announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents.
The conflicting information raises serious questions about the accuracy of Sondland’s account, one that Trump has embraced to counter a growing body of evidence that he and his allies pressured Ukraine for his own political benefit.
The president’s argument that the call proves he was not seeking favors from Ukraine is undercut by the timing: At the end of August, White House lawyers had briefed Trump on the existence of a whistleblower complaint describing the administration’s pressure campaign on Ukraine and the possibility that Trump abused his power, according to a person familiar with the situation. By early September, the president had also begun to confront public questions about why U.S. aid to Ukraine was stalled.
So if Trump did tell Sondland flatly that he wanted “no quid pro quo,” he did so knowing there was growing scrutiny of his posture toward Ukraine.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/witness-testimony-and-records-raise-questions-about-account-of-trumps-no-quid-pro-quo-call/2019/11/27/425545c2-0d49-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html
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