WATCH LIVE: Sondland: Ukraine Aid Link Reflected Trump's 'Desires And Requirements'

NPR Staff

November 20, 2019 / 8:04 am

caption: The Capitol Rotunda is seen with the statue of George Washington on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018.

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, tied President Trump directly to conditioning a meeting with the Ukrainian president with "a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election."

"Mr. Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians," Sondland said in his opening statement at the public impeachment hearings on Wednesday. "Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump's desires and requirements."

Sondland also provided the most explicit link yet of the secretary of state's role in the Ukraine affair, saying he kept Mike Pompeo and other senior State Department officials abreast of his contacts with Giuliani who "specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two topics of importance to the president."

"They knew what we were doing and why," Sondland said of Pompeo and the others in his opening statement at the public impeachment hearings on Wednesday.

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