stuff. i noted that there was big stuff going on in ukraine. like the war with russia and ambassador sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president. like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. so here what sondland was doing in this conversation was discussing these investigations. these investigations that would benefit president trump politically and also claiming that that s the only thing that president trump really cared about when it came to ukraine. very, very important. kylie atwood doing excellent reporting for us, as usual. you know, chris, gordon sondland, he s represented by a well-known, highly respected washington attorney who i m sure is telling him, gordon, ambassador, you ve got to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth no matter where that winds up. otherwise you ll be in big trouble. absolutely. i mean, look. this isn t just about going in and having a candid conversation. he has to worry about his
bidens. that presents a risk to a lot of folks who tried to put distance between themselves claiming ignorance and kurt volker running the policy saying he wasn t quite sure this was the connection there, although others have said the connection was clear. i think that s one big headline here. but the questions will be, was there a quid pro quo? was this meeting with the president and the military aid tied to really you go to a requirement to have the investigations to get these things and, two, was that at the direction of the president? he s going to be asked that directly. does he give clear answers to those questions for someone who wasn t just observing but was directly involved in those conversations. if he does completely, you know, go against what the president has been saying, that the phone conversation was perfect, there was no quid pro quo, everything is great, how damaging potentially for the president could this be? that s what i m looking at. at the beginning of
announcement of ukraine going forward with these investigations. very significant saying that. and a couple of excerpts here that we ll read from this opening statement, discussing the role of rudy giuliani who, of course, the president had directed as part of this effort saying, first, secretary perry, ambassador volker and i worked with mr. rudy giuliani on ukraine matters. at the express direction of the president of the united states. we did not want to work with mr. giuliani. simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. we all understood that if we refused to work with mr. giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the united states and ukraine. so we followed the president s orders. he comes on and go on to discuss more about this effort to try to get ukraine to move forward on these investigations. some of the discussions that were happening internally and later say he continued to learn about the security aid being withheld and how it could ha
giuliani at the direction of president trump and gordon sondland makes very clear it absolutely was. and they were trying to fulfill the president s demands in pushing forward on these investigations. so we ll see how what else he has to say about his specific interactions with president trump because in this opening statement, wolf, he does not really detail all those conversations he had with president trump. he does talk about the july 26th conversation that he had with the president. we learned about last week in which the president urged this ukraine investigation to go forward. he said he doesn t remember all the details but wouldn t be surprised given the push between trump and giuliani to move forward on this investigation. the president would have brought it up, too, at that time. manu, i know you re going through this document. we re going through it as well. stand by. we ll get back to you. gloria, you ve been going through this very closely. at one point he says in his
he only cares about getting this information about the bidens and the 2016 ukrainian intervention in the u.s. election. that s what he cares about. and that s why it matters which gordon sondland shows up today because, really, his story has shifted over a period of months. if we go back to the text messages that have been released between sondland and ambassador taylor, they were going back and forth and taylor says, i think it s crazy to withhold assistance conditioned on these investigations, these political investigations. and then there s this remember, there s this delay of hours before sondland gets back to him and says, oh, no, that s not really what s going on. then there s sondland s closed testimony where he says one thing. then he comes back and corrects his testimony. so sondland has not been consistent. and today is really his one last opportunity in open session under oath to say what is really going on. important distinction here is not that the president wanted a