U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland intends to tell Congress that his text message asserting no "quid pro quo" with Ukraine was relayed directly by President Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported.
Citing an unnamed source, the Post reported Sondland plans to tell lawmakers he doesn’t know if Trump was telling him the truth in the Sept. 9 phone call.
“It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth,” the source told the Post about the planned testimony.
The White House has argued Sondland’s text, which included “no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” proves none was ever considered. The issue is at the heart of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
The source told the Post that Sondland “believed Trump at the time and on that basis passed along assurances” that Trump wasn’t withholding military aid to Ukraine in return for an investigation of political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
“Whether he’s deciding it’s getting too hot to handle and he backs off whatever his position really was a month earlier, I don’t know,” the source said of Sondland’s thinking about Trump’s assurance.
Hours before Sondland called the president, he got a text from William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, raising questions about the military aid holdup. “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor texted Sondland.
That’s when Sondland called Trump, who told him he didn’t “want a quid pro quo . . . didn’t want anything from Ukraine,” the source told the Post.
Sondland goes before House investigators Thursday.
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