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The impeachment saga continues……Day 4 and the EU ambassador, Sondland, the guy that has more versions to his tale than hairs on his butt….

Sondland’s testimony should be the topping on the impeachment pie……

• Who is Sondland? NBC takes a look at Sondland’s background—and why he is so important to the impeachment inquiry. The businessman, who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration before he was named ambassador to the EU, is one of the “three amigos” who dealt with Ukraine policy, and allegedly pressured officials to investigate the Bidens, after ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ousted in May.
• “Tough questions.” The AP predicts that Sondland will face tough questions from both parties about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, and about testimony from earlier witnesses. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified Tuesday that Sondland told Ukrainian officials in a July 10 meeting that they would need to “deliver” before President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet Trump. “Ambassador Sondland referred to investigations into the Bidens and Burisma in 2016,” Vindman testified.
• “Omnipresent shadow.” Kyle Cheney at Politico calls Sondland an “omnipresent shadow” behind the witnesses who have testified so far. The testimony suggested “that Sondland can pull together all of the far-flung elements of Democrats’ impeachment investigation and provide clarity—or sink the probe into further confusion—with his testimony on Wednesday,” he writes.
• A lot of explaining to do. Sondland will have to answer for inconsistencies that have emerged in his story, the New York Times notes. In closed-door testimony, he said he never thought military aid to Ukraine was linked to the investigations Trump was pushing for, but he later revised his testimony to say he told the Ukrainians that “resumption of the US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”

US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s testimony as part of the House impeachment inquiry. President Trump had a different take: “It’s all over.” Politico reports that in comments to reporters, Trump had this to say of Sondland: “I have not spoken to him much. This is not a man I know well. He seems like a nice guy, though.” But as for Sondland’s recollection of a September phone call in which Trump explicitly said “I want no quid pro quo,” the president said this: “That means it’s all over. This is the final word from the president of the United States. I want nothing.” You can read Sondland’s opening remarks in full here. Highlights:

On quid pro quo: In what the Guardian describes as Sondland “pointing a finger directly at Trump,” he said this: “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes. Mr. Giuliani conveyed to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and others that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election. Mr. Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians. Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.”

• On Giuliani: “Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.”
• On the suspension of aid: “In July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression. I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer. In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded.”
• A “bombshell”: At the Atlantic, David A. Graham presents what he says were the two key sentences of Sondland’s opening statement: “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” Writes Graham, “Sondland’s testimony shows that far from freelancing a crazy scheme, he was working closely with the president and with top policymakers in the administration, keeping them apprised.”
• A three-letter word: Daniel Goldman, the Democrats’ lawyer, asked Sondland if he remembering saying to President Trump that the Ukrainian president “loves your ass” during a July 26 call at a Kyiv restaurant, reports CNN. Sondland replied that it “sounds like something I would say. That’s how President Trump and I communicate. A lot of four-letter words. In this case, three letters,” he said to laughter.
• A major blow? CNN writes there was one “major blow” for Democrats that came when Sondland repeatedly answered Goldman by saying Trump never directly verbally linked the aid with an announcement of investigations. But he did reference other top officials as being in the loop, among them Mike Pence, whom Sondland says he mentioned the apparent link to while in a meeting. Sondland said Pence “nodded like he heard what I said.”
• Ken Starr weighs in: In speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, the head prosecutor in Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings said Sondland’s testimony “doesn’t look good for the president, substantively.” Starr continued, “It’s over … The articles of impeachment are being drawn up, if they haven’t already been drawn up. … This obviously has been one of those bombshell days,” said Starr, who added that Democrats will claim Trump “committed the crime of bribery.”

The GOP on the committee tried to turn it into a fiasco (as usual)….Jimbo Baggins and Willy the Weasel did what they always do….try to turn the hearing into a bigger circus….

All in all the day was in the win column for the Dems and impeachment…..

The Debate was yesterday as well…..summary to come….

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