Gordon Sondland won't confirm or deny key details of Trump phone call at Kyiv restaurant

United States Ambassador to the European Gordon Sondland apparently remembers everything but the Bidens.

During his public impeachment testimony Wednesday, Sondland addressed previous private testimony from David Holmes, an official from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, in which Holmes said he overheard Trump loudly ask Sondland over the phone in July at a restaurant in Kyiv if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "going to do the investigation."

In Sondland's prepared opening statement, he said he remembered the phone call but didn't find it significant at the time (Holmes did not feel the same way) and that he and Trump were primarily discussing A$AP Rocky and his legal troubles in Sweden. Sondland did say he considered most of Holmes' recollection accurate and didn't directly challenge any part of his testimony, but he was adamant that he at least doesn't remember mentioning former Vice President Joe Biden or his son, Hunter, during or after the call with Trump. Holmes, on the other hand, testified that after the call Sondland told him that Trump doesn't care about Ukraine except for "big stuff" like investigating the Bidens.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

During Wednesday's questioning, Sondland said he doesn't think he would have said something like that, though he couldn't recall anything specifically refuting Holmes' claims.

Sondland said he "would have been more surprised if" Trump hadn't mentioned investigations, but he claimed that at the time he was not operating under the assumption that the investigations were referring to the Bidens, which he is aware of now. Though some observers aren't buying that excuse. Tim O'Donnell