york, if i had known of all of mr. giuliani s dealings or his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment, i would not have acquiesced to his participation. yes. he also says at the time we thought nothing was improper which is kind of surprising and confusing to me about why he would think this was proper to go through rudy giuliani. the bigger point here, wolf, to me is that he says everyone was in the loop. period. end of sentence. from the president on down. it was no secret. he says it twice. again, everyone was in the loop. including the vice president who he said he thinks it s going to be about investigations. including the secretary of state. including, of course, led by the president of the united states. but he doesn t spare anybody here. he says, look, this was a committee project. this wasn t us acting on some
investigation. sondland told taylor that he had made a mistake by telling the ukrainians that an oval office meeting was dependent on a public announcement of investigations. in fact, everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. but even the announcement by the prosecutor general would not satisfy the president. on september 7th, sondland spoke to the president and told tim morrison and bill taylor about the call shortly thereafter. the president said that although this was not a quid pro quo, if president zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate. moreover, announcement by the prosecutor general would not be enough. president zelensky must personally must announce personally that he would open the investigations. sondland told him that president trump was a businessman. when a businessman is to sign a check to someone who owes him, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the
and dumping operation and russian social media campaign directed by vladimir putin to help trump. trump s scheme undermined military and diplomatic support for a key ally and undercut u.s. anti-corruption efforts in ukraine. trump put his personal and political interests above those of the united states. as ambassador sondland would later tell career foreign service officer david holmes immediately after speaking to the president, trump did not give a expletive about ukraine. he cares about the big stuff that benefits him, like the biden investigations that rudy giuliani was pushing. ambassador sondland was a skilled dealmaker, but in trying to satisfy a directive from the president, found himself increasingly embroiled in an effort to press the new ukrainian president that deviated sharply from the norm in both terms of policy and process. in february, ambassador sondland travelled to ukraine hosfirst official trip to that country.
defense department and david hale from the state department. they ll testify how unusual it was how they handled this military aid, how it was held up, how she wasn t informed about some of those key decisions. and david hale will provide information about the ousted ambassador marie yovanovitch. despite this pressure campaign from giuliani s smear campaign to get her out from the post. in just under an hour, gordon sondland will deliver that key testimony providing information. we ll see about what he says about those conversations with the president and how involved the president was in holding the ukraine aid over that country until it announced those investigations. look, this is going to be a very interesting day because, by all indications, manu, gordon sondland is not going to shoulder the blame for this ukraine campaign. so how does he distribute the responsibility? we ll see soon.
closed doors that are going to be things they are going to look at when they talk to him today in an open setting. one of the things he said is that president trump directed him to work with rudy giuliani, his private attorney, on ukraine. and he said that disappointed him. that he would not have suggested that someone who is of the president s personal attorney area would work on foreign policy but nonetheless, he did it. the other thing he claimed is he was unaware initially that giuliani was pushing for investigations into biden. burisma was on the table, but he claimed the two were separate. so there are a number of things in his closed door testimony that folks are going to ask him about today. he s also going to be asked a lot about that phone conversation he had while at a restaurant, outdoor terrace at a restaurant in kiev, the ukrainian capital with the president of the united states. a conversation that could be heard by others at that table, including david holmes, the