US top officials linked to Ukraine probes

WASHINGTON－The US ambassador to the European Union testified that top officials of the administration of President Donald Trump were involved in efforts to pressure Ukraine to conduct two probes that would benefit Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

The envoy, Gordon Sondland, in the fourth day of public hearings in an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives, said he "followed the president's orders" to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer.

The efforts by Giuliani to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former US vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter "were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit" for the Ukrainian leader, Sondland said.

Sondland also depicted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as engaged in attempts to make the investigations happen, including one targeting the Bidens. Sondland also said US Vice-President Mike Pence was aware of the efforts.

"Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret," Sondland said in reference to an email he sent on July 19 to top US officials before the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelensky that triggered the impeachment hearings by the House Intelligence Committee.

Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney were among the recipients of the email, in which Sondland discussed Zelensky's willingness to "run a fully transparent investigation".

In the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to carry out two investigations. One involved Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, who was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The other involved a theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

Sondland described Trump in May telling him, along with Perry and then-US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, to work with Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, on Ukraine policy.

"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," Sondland said.

Sondland said he told Pence he was concerned that the freezing of $391 million in security aid to Ukraine was part of the pressure campaign. The aid had been approved by Congress to help Ukraine fight separatists backed by Russia. Pence's chief of staff denies the conversation took place.

Sondland also testified that the president did not directly ask for a quid pro quo. "Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the investigations," Sondland said. "The aid was my own personal guess based, again, on your analogy, two plus two equals four."

As both sides spun Sondland's testimony, Democrats focused on his implication of top White House officials, while Republicans sought to emphasize the lack of a direct demand by Trump.

"I believe I just asked him (Trump) an open-ended question," Sondland said, in response to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is presiding over the inquiry. "What do you want from Ukraine?

"'I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.' Something to that effect," Sondland said Trump had replied.

Trump, in a visit on Wednesday to an Apple assembly plant in Austin, Texas, railed against the impeachment proceedings and the media and praised the strength of the US economy.

"Some of the fair press, of which there isn't too much, said 'this (impeachment) thing is over'," Trump said. "We have a phony press. They're dishonest."

The investigation could lead the Democratic-led House to approve formal charges against Trump－called articles of impeachment－that would be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial on whether to remove him from office. Few Republican senators have broken with Trump.

Reuters contributed to this story.