One of the minor recreations of the times is contemplating the activities of some of the minor figures filling in the shaded background region of the rogues' gallery that is the Trump administration—for example, Gordon Sondland, our ambassador to the European Union, who tomorrow is being deposed in the House impeachment inquiry. Assuming my own case is representative, no one knew till about a week ago who he was or that he's almost perfectly bald, and I'm pretty sure he'd have preferred that it stay that way even if he's cool with being bald.
Ambassador to the EU is a pretty big job and one might innocently expect that the person in the position might have a background in government and diplomacy. Sondland, however, has no such experience. He's a wealthy hotel magnate from the Pacific Northwest and a big Republican donor. His main qualification for the ambassadorship to the EU appears to have been a 7-figure contribution, funneled through four limited liability companies, to the Trump inaugural committee. Drain the swamp? Lol!
His path to the strobe lights began with a call-out in the whistleblower complaint:
On 26 July, a day after the call [in which Trump told President Zelenskyy of Ukraine "I would like you to do us a favor though"], U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker visited Kyiv and met with President Zelenskyy and a variety of Ukrainian political officials. Ambassador Volker was accompanied in his meetings by U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. Based on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me by various U.S. officials, Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to "navigate" the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy.
One rotten smelling aspect of this relates to the fact that Ukraine is not a member of the EU. Sondland will no doubt be asked tomorrow why then he, as Ambassador to the EU, was working to help a non-member nation "navigate" Trump's request. Presumably, he'll tell congressional investigators the same thing he told a Ukrainian journalist who asked why he was spending so much time in Ukraine—that Trump, in addition to honoring him with the EU ambassadorship, had also given him some "special assignments." In that case, he can expect some follow-ups, because it's pretty clear by now that this particular "special assignment" involved the operations of a shadow foreign policy designed not to advance American interests abroad but, rather, to enlist the services of a foreign government in Trump's reelection campaign.
Sondland will say he was in the dark about the real intent, and that he thought Trump and Giuliani were interested only in rooting out corruption in Ukraine. But this isn't believable, even if you adopt—cough, ahem, cough—a wildly exaggerated view of the degree to which these hoodlums care about establishing clean government in Ukraine. Bill Taylor, our ambassador to Ukraine, knew what was going on. He exchanged with Sondland the following text messages on September 9:
Taylor: The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.
[3 minutes later] Taylor: Counting on you to be right about this interview, Gordon.
[3 minutes later] Sondland: Bill, I never said I was "right". I said we are where we are and believe we have identified the best pathway forward. Let's hope that it works.
[10 minutes later] Taylor: As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.
[4.5 hours later] Sondland: Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind. The President has been trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign I suggest we drop the back and forth by text If you still have concerns I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks.
It's fun to imagine what Taylor made of this—the 4.5 hour interlude of silence broken by a false and fantastic claim of pure intentions that is immediately undercut by the request to quit texting about what's actually happening, and then, to make clear that this should be the end of it, "Thanks."
Sondland, probably a bored rich guy, really wanted to be an ambassador, and, his dream purchased for a million dollars, he must now tell a tale in which he appears, implausibly, as an innocent bystander at the crime scene. He got recruited for the Ukrainian "special assignment" because the dreaded deep-state professionals who have made a career of working in the federal government were more apt to blow the whistle on Trump's corruption than to participate in it. The ambassador to Ukraine was mucking things up with text messages, and his predecessor was so straight an arrow that she had to be recalled. Trump can only count on people like Giuliani, who isn't even a part of the government, and Sondland, who paid a ransom for the chance to befoul himself in the swamp.
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