Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland will show up armed with new evidence, planning to hammer home the idea that the Ukraine pressure campaign was carried out completely on President Donald Trump’s orders, according to his opening statement.
“Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States,” he plans to say of the so-called “three amigos.”
He added that though they didn’t like working with Giuliani, they realized that there was no other option. “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,” he will say. “So we followed the President’s orders”
“Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States and we knew that these investigations were important to the President,” he added, tying Trump intrinsically to the sham investigation of the Bidens.
“As a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the President. We worked with Mr. Giuliani because the President directed us to do so,” he plans to say.
Read his opening remarks here: