hill this afternoon where house democrats say they will issue a subpoena for eu ambassador and trump inauguration donor gordon sondland after the white house blocked him this morning from testifying before the house intelligence committee. that has not stopped us from learning more about this role in this ukraine controversy and specifically the series of texts including one where sondland pushed back on concerns u.s. military aid hinged whether it would comply with president trump s requesting into joe biden and his son. sondland said the president was clear, no quid pro quos and able to speak with confidence because as it turns out he talked to president trump before he sent that text. kylie atwood is cnn s national security reporter. kylie, start with you. tell me more about that particular phone call and did it play any part in why the white
on september 1st, the ambassador to ukraine asked sondland if hundreds of millions of dollars and military assistance were conditioned on investigations. sondland responded call me. a week later, the ambassador told sondland, i think it s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. sondland denied it was, saying president trump has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms. sondland has ended up in the hot seat in washington after a career in business. like president trump, building hotels across the country and making a lot of money. thank you. reporter: in the 2016 campaign, the longtime republican donor first supported jeb bush. he slammed trump for going after the gold star khan family, who lost a son in iraq. but his tune soon changed.
oversight duties as well as getting that information, then that itself is an article of impeachment. if you look back at watergate, it wasn t just the fact that they broke into the watergate, it was all of the actions afterwards that were part of the articles of impeachment. so the president is either going to have the easy way or the hard way and the easy way is to comply with us and allow these state department employees and the other information we need to make a determination, he ll still get impeachment in the end because of obstruction of justice and obstructing congress. when one american diplomat texted sondland, quote, i think it is crazy to withhold assistance with regard to a politic campaign and sondland called the president and four and a half hours later is when he texted a reply. it is was a legalistic message saying the president was, quote, crystal clear, there was no quid pro quos, as he put it. what do you make of that? well i think this is just cya politics, cov
okay? so gordon sondland takes five hours to reply to that pretty obvious text, and the new york times reports first he goes to consult with president trump, and then here is his very candid response. bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. if you still have concerns i recommend you give lisa ken na or s a call to discuss them directly. thanks. it is quite obvious that he is not a disinterested party. elie, how do you deal with a witness who comes in who clearly is going to speak from president trump s script? you have to stick him with his own texts. that is a cover your butt statement if i ve ever seen one. all the other texts are so
another, the first one being bill taylor, essentially running the ukraine policy out of the white house since excuse me, for the white house, since they recalled the ambassador. he asked another official in express concern there was going to be a quid pro quo situation happening here into which gordon sondland replied, supposed to testify today, i believe you re correct about the president s intentions saying the president you are incorrect. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. that last text came after bill taylor sthaent initial message. someone called to the white house spoke with president trump when president trump told sondland no agreement about the exchange for the military aid over that investigation and when you saw him reply there. it s interesting, because it s giving insight as the would us is trying to dismiss this whistle-blower you see they re own top officials in ukraine were raising concerns about their actions.