House committees release depositions with high-profile officials who exchanged texts about Trump's stance on military aid to Ukraine. Follow live updates:
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Alex Rogers Gordon Sondland arrives for a closed session at the US Capitol on October 28. Mark Wilson/Getty Images Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, said he realized on Sept.
1 that President Trump and Rudy Giuliani wanted a quid pro quo with Ukraine — and later, when it became even clearer, was"alarmed" about what the President wanted. Sondland highlighted how he was hearing a different message from Giuliani about what Trump wanted. "I am assuming Rudy Giuliani heard it from the President, but I don't know that," he said. "President Trump changes his mind on what he wants on a daily basis. I have no idea what he wanted on the day I called him," he added. On Monday, Sondland's attorney sent the committee a three-page addition to his testimony, in which he saidthat occurred on the sidelines of a meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During that conversation, he told a top aide to the Ukrainian president that the security aid and investigations were linked. According to the transcript, a committee interviewer asked Sondland if he realized the connection on Sept. 1 between aid to Ukraine and an announcement about the investigations Giuliani and Trump wanted. "I think that was the beginning of when that allegation began to be made," he said, referring to a text message from another ambassador, Bill Taylor, sent him that read,"Are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations?" Days later, Taylor sent another text message that made the link more clear between the withholding of aid and the President's wish for an investigation into his political rivals:"I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Taylor wrote.That prompted Sondland to call the President, and pass Trump's words to him back to Taylor:"No quid pro quo." Giuliani, however, had told Sondland Trump wanted an announcement about Ukraine investigating the company linked to the Bidens. "Should I have done something earlier?" Sondland said about his Sept. 9 call to Trump."Maybe. I didn't."
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