-We can see why Secretary Pompeo and President Trump
have made such a concerted and across-the-board effort
to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry,
and I will just say this.
They do so at their own peril.
I remind the president that Article 3
of the impeachment articles drafted against President Nixon
was his refusal to obey the subpoenas of Congress.
-The Democrats' fake outrage that President Trump
used his own channel to communicate with Ukraine.
I'll remind my friends on the other side of the aisle
that our first president, George Washington,
directed his own diplomatic channels
to secure a treaty with Great Britain.
If my Democratic colleagues were around in 1794,
they'd probably want to impeach him, too.
-I agreed to testify because I respect
the gravity of the moment,
and I believe I have an obligation
to account fully for my role in these events.
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.
We did not want to work with Mr.
Giuliani.
Simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt.
I know that members of this committee
frequently frame these complicated issues
in the form of a simple question.
"Was there a quid pro quo?"
As I testified previously,
with regard to the requested White House call
and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.
Mr. Giuliani conveyed
to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker,
and others that President Trump wanted a public statement
from President Zelensky,
committing to investigations of Burisma
and the 2016 election.
Everyone was in the loop.
It was no secret.
Everyone was informed via e-mail on July 19th,
days before the presidential call.
-You confirmed to President Trump
that you were in Ukraine at the time
and that President Zelensky "loves your ass."
DO you recall saying that?
-Yeah, it sounds like something I would say.
President Trump never told me directly that
the aid was conditioned on the meetings.
The only thing we got directly from Giuliani
was that the Burisma and 2016 elections
were conditioned on the White House meeting.
The aid was my own personal, you know, guess.
-As we get to the end here, you don't have records,
you don't have your notes 'cause you didn't take notes,
you don't have a lot of recollections.
I mean, this is, like, the trifecta of unreliability.
Isn't that true?
-Well, what I'm trying to do today
is to use the limited information
I have to be as forthcoming as possible with you
and the rest of the committee,
and as these recollections have been refreshed
by subsequent testimony,
by some texts and e-mails that I've now had access to,
I think I've filled in a lot of blanks.
-I mean, you got all three of them wrong.
They get the call, they get the meeting, they get the money.
It's not two plus two.
It's 0 for 3.
-Is that your testimony today, Ambassador Sondland,
that you have evidence that Donald Trump
tied the investigation to the aid,
'cause I don't think you're saying that?
-I've said repeatedly, Congressman, I was presuming.
-Do you know what made-up testimony is?
Made-up testimony is when I just presume it.
I mean, you're just assuming all of these things,
and then you're giving them the evidence.
-My colleagues seem to be under the impression that
unless the president spoke the words "Ambassador Sondland,
I am bribing the Ukrainian president,"
that there's no evidence of bribery.
But, nonetheless, Ambassador, you've given us
a lot of evidence of precisely that conditionality
of both the White House meeting and the military assistance.
-You see, in mathematic fact, two plus two does equal four.
But in reality, two presumptions plus two presumptions
does not equal even one fact.
And the fact is the president did tell you,
"Ambassador Sondland, no quid pro quo."
-I'm afraid I only have three minutes.
I have some other issues, but thank you.
-The end of the article does go through that and also says
it's three Pinocchios in spite of that --
Well, the president of the United States
has five Pinocchios on a daily basis,
so let's not go there.
-What Ukrainian law did Hunter Biden violate?
-I'm not aware.
-What evidence is there that he may have violated
any Ukrainian law?
-I'm not aware. If I had been in charge,
I would have asked President Trump
to have the meeting without preconditions
and the meeting would have occurred a long time ago.