Obligation to account fully for my role in these events. Did by obligation, you mean simply your legal obligation . Or did you mean something bigger . Well, both my legal obligation and my moral obligation. Your moral obligation . I actually want to present an alternative theory. Your family came here escaping the holocaust via uruguay. And your parents moved lucy and later you here where, frankly, youve been an american success story. Through dent of hard work and innovation, good idea, and knack to hire the right people and some luck, youve built a considerable successful business. One that i know for a fact would make your parents proud. They came here because they knew
that it was here that they could have freedom that they had not enjoyed, security that they had not enjoyed, and opportunity that they had not enjoyed. And no doubt, on some level, youre grateful and its created a sense of patriotism in you. Is that fair to say . Very fair. Why then, sir, with your courage to come be
viewed him? whether he was being taken seriously or any concerns about being used as a tool for political reasons? well, i saw that in an e-mail from ambassador taylor. we obviously tried to relay to president zelensky the glass half full version of how the united states felt about ukraine, not the glass half empty version, which is we re here for you. we support you. and we re trying very hard to get you the meeting with president trump. so after hearing that from ambassador taylor, you relayed you tried to reassure president zelensky that america was truly on their side. is that what you just said? i think we ve been trying to assure president zelensky throughout his entire his entire term as a president. ambassador, i know you said you don t quite remember exactly when you came to the realization that burisma actually meant bidens. but back on may 6th, when asked about a news report about the
he s donald trump s hand-picked ambassador to the eu. stating explicitly in testimony today that military aid and a trump/zelensky meeting were conditioned on a commitment to investigations sought by president trump. he suggested officials at the highest levels of donald trump s white house and cabinet were fully aware and briefed on every step of the pressure campaign against ukraine. sondland also drawing a direct line to president trump. saying that he was the one directing his aides to coordinate with rudy giuliani. the man allegedly behind the quid pro quo. it s significant because sondland is the only witness so far who had a direct and seemingly open line of communication with the president himself. i m very lucky to be joined by my colleague ari melber, msnbc anchor and chief legal correspondent. msnbc legal analyst, maya wily, who previously worked in the civil division of the u.s. attorney s office in the
and the best direct evidence we have is actually what the president told you. i want nothing. there is no quid pro quo. i want zelensky to do exactly what he campaigned on. and when that became clear to us, guess what? they got the money. they got the money. god bless america. it all worked out. right? this is crazy what we re going through because the facts are so darn clear. i yield back. mr. welch. thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador, i m impressed with your career. been very successful in business. i m impressed with your commitment to public service. and i was very impressed with your forthright statements so thank you for that. you said it was the highest honor for you to have that opportunity to have this appointment to serve as ambassador to the eu, correct? correct. and you quickly became very involved in the ukraine policy. and that policy has been described by you and others was
material, factual questions that we need answers to. yield back and thank you, ambassador, for being here. thank you. i thank the ranking member for his remarks. ambassador sondland, thank you for your testimony today. this is a seminal moment in our investigation. and the evidence you have brought forward is deeply significant and troubling. it s been a long hearing and i know americans watching throughout the country may not have had the opportunity to watch all of it. so i m going to go through a few of the highlights and i m not going to try to paraphrase what you said. i m going to refer to your opening statement. 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. mr. giuliani s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a