Trump news: Released impeachment testimony describes Ukraine quid pro quo, as White House chief of staff called to testify
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Your support makes all the difference.A key witness has agreed to cooperate with congress’ impeachment inquiry, as the president faces increasing congressional scrutiny over his behaviour.
Lev Parnas, an indicted businessman who has been linked to the Ukraine scandal is prepared to provide testimony and records to congress, his lawyer said.
Mr Parnas has close ties to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.
The news of Mr Parnas's plan to participate came on a busy day in Washington, including revised testimony from US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who described an effort by the Trump administration to secure a quid pro quo in Ukraine.
The amended testimony essentially reversed his previous testimony on the matter, and prompted the White House to claim that nothing had changed — and maintain that there was no quid pro quo, or anything concerning about his 25 July phone call with Ukraine.
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Reports indicate the transcripts for Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker are about to be released - we'll continue providing live updates and analysis as they come in:
Here's The Independent's Andrew Buncombe with more on the release of the high-profile transcripts:
Breaking: Here are two pretty explosive excerpts from the release of the Gordon Sondland transcripts showing the diplomat essentially confirming that Donald Trump wanted Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into Joe Biden and his son in order to have a meeting with the president at the White House:
We now have excerpts from Gordon Sondland's testimony online provided by the House committees spearheading an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. Here are some of the most explosive quotes:
“You know, this whole thing was sort of a continuum, starting at the May 23rd meeting, ending up at the end of the line when the transcript of the call came out. And as I said to counsel, it started as talk to Rudy, then others talk to Rudy. Corruption was mentioned. Then, as time went on—and, again, I can’t nail down the dates—then let’s get the Ukrainians to give a statement about corruption. And then, no, corruption isn’t enough, we need to talk about the 2016 election and the Burisma investigations. And it was always described to me as ongoing investigations that had been stopped by the previous administration and they wanted them started up again. That’s how it was always described. And then finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released. So I can’t tell you on that continuum when, what dates, but that’s kind of what happened.”
“It kept—it kept getting more insidious as [the] timeline went on, and back in July, it was all about just corruption.”
Gordon Sondland told investigators that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was well aware Rudy Giuliani was involved in Ukraine, reportedly rolling his eyes and saying the president's lawyer was simply "something we have to deal with".
He goes on to say the requests from Mr Giuliani became increasingly "insidious" as they called on Ukraine to launch investigations into the origins of the Russia probe, as well as the Bidens.
Investigators asked Gordon Sondland if it was "fair to say that because there were added conditions to this meeting that Ukraine desperately wanted and that you wanted to make happen, that that meeting wasn’t going to happen unless Ukraine played ball in meeting the demands of the President and Mr. Giuliani?"
To which Mr Sondland responded: "Well, that expression came up in previous testimony, and I’d never heard the term “play ball.”
"But you understand what that means, right?" investigators asked.
"If you mean that those conditions would have to be complied with prior to getting a meeting, that was my understanding," he replied.
Gordon Sondland suggested that he never found requests from the White House for Ukraine to launch investigations was "proper," saying it doesn't "sound good".
He said he went to the president and asked: "What do you want from Ukraine?"
"I want no quid pro quo," the president reportedly responded. "I want Ukraine to do the right thing."
Gordon Sondland claimed he was not aware from the offset that Donald Trump was asking Ukraine to launch investigations into the Bidens: "I don’t recall when I finally—when the light finally went on that Burisma and the Bidens were connected, but certainly not early on at all. I can’t tell you the day that finally I said, oh, Burisma equals Biden. I have no idea when that was."
"I think I said that I didn’t know what was in the call until I saw the call record. I had no idea that he had brought up the Bidens in the call until I saw the call report," he added. "I don’t recall when I finally put it together. I don’t recall what the date was or the place was or the time was. I don’t recall."
Here's the official congressional request to depose Donald Trump's chief of staff -
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