US envoy confirms existence of Ukraine ‘quid pro quo’

20 November 2019, 4:45 pm

Edit

Was there a “quid pro quo?”

The ambassador entangled in an impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump is telling House lawmakers: “Yes.”

Gordon Sondland is testifying publicly to the House Intelligence Committee.

Sondland says “we all understood” that a meeting at the White House for Ukraine’s president and a phone call with Trump would happen only if President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agreed to an investigation into the 2016 US election and the son of former vice president Joe Biden.

Gordon Sondland, the U.S ambassador to the European Union, is sworn in before testifying to the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 20, 2019, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP)

He says he sent an email on July 19, just days before the July 25 call at the center of the impeachment inquiry, where he laid out the issue in detail to members of the State and Energy departments and White House staff.

Sondland says: “It was no secret.”

— AP