House to Subpoena Envoy After Trump Officials Block Testimony
State Department Blocks Envoy From Impeachment Inquiry Testimony
(Bloomberg) -- House impeachment investigators said they will issue a subpoena to one of President Donald Trump’s top diplomats, who was blocked Tuesday by the State Department from testifying before congressional committees.
The move kept Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, from his appearance before the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Reform committees in the latest escalation of the stand-off between the administration and Congress over witnesses.
“We consider this interference to be obstruction of the impeachment inquiry,” the chairmen of the three House committees said in a statement. “We will be issuing subpoena to Ambassador Sondland for both his testimony and documents.”
The subpoena will also seek text messages and emails from Sondland’s personal device, which the chairmen say have been provided to the State Department.
“Those messages are also deeply relevant to this investigation and the impeachment inquiry,” said Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff.
The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, is also scheduled to testify behind closed doors this week. The chairmen did not say whether they know if she is also being instructed not to appear.
Sondland, a hotel executive who donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, had come under increased scrutiny after Kurt Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine, turned over text messages in his closed deposition last week that showed Sondland seeking to encourage Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Democrats are trying to establish what leverage Trump used to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, now a political rival for the 2020 election.
But they have faced broad resistance from the Trump administration, as the president and his legal counsel push back on demands for documents and witness testimony. The administration’s blocking of Sondland from testifying represents the latest example of that.
State Department Direction
Trump has responded furiously to the impeachment process, calling the probe a “scam” and a “witch hunt.” The president is scheduled to hold political rallies this week in Minnesota and Louisiana to offer his defense to his most passionate supporters.
The heart of the House inquiry is Trump’s suggestions this summer that he would withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine in return for looking into the Bidens. The committees are requesting testimony from State Department officials and others who may have helped Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, push Ukrainian officials to comply.
Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy was initially revealed in a complaint filed by a intelligence community whistle-blower, whose identity remains unknown. That report details Sondland’s Kiev trip with Volker on July 26 -- a day after Trump’s call -- to meet “with President Zelenskiy and a variety of Ukrainian political figures.”
Less than an hour before Sondland’s deposition was supposed to begin on Tuesday, Robert Luskin, the attorney representing the ambassador, informed the committees that the State Department instructed his client not to appear.
“As the sitting U.S. ambassador to the EU and employee of the State Department, Ambassador Sondland is required to follow the department’s direction,” Luskin said in a statement.
He said Sondland had agreed to appear willfully, not under subpoena, and “is profoundly disappointed that he will not be able to testify today,” but that “he stands ready to answer the committee’s questions fully and truthfully.”
Trump tweeted that he “would love” for Sondland to testify, “but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public” to see.
Schiff said committee staff spoke with the State Department late Monday, and there was no indication that Sondland’s deposition would be blocked.
“The failure to produce this witness, the failure to produce these documents” could become part of a charge that the Trump administration is obstructing Congress, Schiff said.
Whistle-Blowers Complaint
Sondland’s testimony is a key part of the impeachment inquiry, given his role in the events that underpin the investigation. According to the whistle-blower complaint that sparked the process, “Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the president had made of Mr. Zelenskiy.”
The texts given to the committees last week also show that Sondland and another top American diplomat helped script a proposed announcement by Ukraine’s leader to say his government would investigate Biden and his son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. That announcement was never made.
The texts also show Sondland defending Giuliani’s efforts to get Ukraine to look into the Bidens, even over concerns raised by the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who warned against conditioning U.S. military assistance on an “investigation.”
“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” wrote Taylor on Sept. 9.
Sondland replied that Trump isn’t seeking “a quid pro quo,” but wants to test Ukraine’s commitment to reform. He then suggested they stop texting and said Taylor should speak directly to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. Trump referenced Sondland’s texted response in a tweet Tuesday morning.
Central Role
Though Ukraine is not part of the European Union, the documents now made public show that Sondland played an central role in Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukraine leaders to carry out the investigations.
Some Democrats, including Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia, a member of the Oversight Committee, have called on Sondland to resign.
“These text messages are deeply troubling. Mr. Sondland has lost credibility and must resign,” said Connolly, in a statement.
Sondland’s blocked testimony comes after the lawyer for two other individuals -- Ukrainian born businessman Lev Parnes and his business partner Igor Fruman -- said on Monday they would, for now, put off a request to testify and turn over additional documents by Oct. 14. The committees are prepared to respond with subpoenas to force them to testify, according to a House official.
The House request is “overly broad and unduly burdensome” and “beyond the scope” of the inquiry, John Dowd, the lawyer representing Parnes and Fruman, wrote in an Oct. 3 letter to the House Intelligence Committee obtained by Bloomberg News.
Dowd previously represented Trump as a personal lawyer during the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton
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