Sondland testifies Ukraine was being pushed to announce investigations — but not necessarily really do them

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland just testified that Ukraine's president was pushed to announce investigations President Trump wanted, but not necessarily to actually open them.

Sondland testified as part of the impeachment inquiry into Trump, which is examining whether the president improperly pressured Ukraine into making a public announcement about the opening of investigations involving former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2016 election. A key defense from Trump has been that he was simply interested in getting Ukraine to investigate corruption, not damage his political rivals.

But Sondland suggested in his testimony that Trump was seemingly less concerned about the investigations actually being conducted than he was with the investigations being announced.

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"He had to announce the investigations," Sondland said, referring to what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had to do to get a White House meeting. "He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it."

Sondland expanded on this later in the testimony by saying he never heard "anyone say the investigations had to start or had to be completed," and that the "only thing" he heard "was they had to be announced in some form."

Sondland did add that the "way it was expressed to me was that the Ukrainians had a long history of committing to things privately and then never following through," suggesting Trump's motivation for seeking the announcement may have been so that Ukraine would, in fact, have to conduct them. Still, Sondland's emphasis on the importance of the announcement itself could also suggest Trump was primarily interested in publicly damaging his potential 2020 opponent. The Washington Post's Aaron Blake observed, "This COMPLETELY undermines the idea that this was actually about corruption — in case there was any doubt." Brendan Morrow