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US Ambassador to EU Set to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - After the State Department blocked him from appearing last
   week, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is
   scheduled to appear Thursday before House lawmakers conducting an
   impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's relations with
   Ukraine.

   The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees are
   holding the closed-door deposition where Sondland is expected to say
   Trump would only offer a White House visit to Ukrainian President
   Volodymyr Zelenskiy if he committed to investigations involving Trump's
   Democratic rivals.

   Sondland, a Trump donor, was one of several diplomats who advised the
   Ukrainian leadership about how to carry out Trump's demands after his
   July phone call with Zelenskiy. In the call, Trump asked the Kyiv
   leader for "a favor" -- that Ukraine investigate one of Trump's top
   Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden, and the
   business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

   According to a U.S. intelligence whistleblower, Sondland and other
   diplomats exchanged a series of text messages in which the diplomats
   wondered why roughly $400 million in aid to Ukraine was frozen.

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