and neither is the united states. it appears to me that he was the kind of political person spying on the career diplomats to make sure they did this quid pro quo deal that the president wanted. again, i m speculating there. he s a very different person than either am bass der volker who testified last week or ambassador yovanovitch who is testifying now. very interesting as well, fiona hill who knows and is familiar with the national security reporting process internally at the white house. right. and remember fiona is a political appointee, but a professional. again, somebody i ve known for 30 years. he is not one of these people that simply purchased her position to work at the national security council, a much more credible witness in my view. important to note that as well. ambassador mcfall, i know there s a new report out in the washington post that claims at least four national security officials raised alarms about ukraine policy before or after that july phone call betw
nothing to take lightly for sure. i think what you re starting to see, there s probably multiple things going on, one is the congressional subpoena is a very serious thing. two is there are people who perhaps want to testify and talk for different reasons because maybe they want to clear their name, because maybe they want to defend the president, maybe they saw things that they thought were inappropriate. so you re seeing, for instance, our new reporting on fionna hill who was the national security council s director for russia and european policy and whose portfolio included ukraine, a person familiar with her testimony next week, if it goes forward, said she plans to say that rudy giuliani and gordon sondland were running a shadow organization that circumvented the national security council, including the national security adviser and reported directly to the president.
sondland appear in front of investigators? what can he offer to their inquiry? well, first of all, remember two things. most people who are ambassadors like masha yovanovitch, most people that work at the state department are career people. there s another group that are political appointees. i was a political appointee up der president obama. efs a specialist, worked at the white house with national security before him. there s another category of people that become ambassadors simply because they give money to presidential candidates. both democrats and republicans do that. that s the kind of person that ambassador sondland is. that s really important to keep reminding yourself. he literally bought that position by giving money to the inauguration. he is not an expert on ukraine. i have no idea why he was involved in this. he is the ambassador to the european union which, by the way, ukraine is not a member of