Gordon Sondland hits the panic button
Thus far in the House impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, most of the witnesses have had nothing to hide, and so they’ve told the ugly truth about Trump’s crimes. Then there’s the matter of U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who seemingly tried to throw Trump under the bus while minimizing his own criminal culpability – but that’s promptly blowing up in his face.
Even before Gordon Sondland testified, he was already facing a tricky path. Media reports had surfaced that John Bolton caught Sondland trying to run a quid pro quo on Ukrainian officials, and shut him down for it, and then reported the incident to National Security Council lawyers. Instead of fessing up to this, Sondland testified under oath that no one had told him a quid pro quo was involved in anything he was doing with the Ukrainians. Then Fiona Hill and Bill Taylor gave testimony that backed up Bolton’s series of events and refuted Sondland’s testimony.
That left members of Congress publicly floating the idea of a felony perjury referral against Gordon Sondland. Sure, that wouldn’t go anywhere now. But once Trump and Bill Barr are gone, the next iteration of the DOJ could put Sondland in prison. According the Washington Post, Sondland is sensing legal trouble, and now his lawyers are asserting that he “does not recall” having had any conversations about a quid pro quo. This is a panic move.
Sometimes this defense works and sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on whether a jury would believe that a person could possibly have forgotten the conversation in question. Would a jury believe that Gordon Sondland forgot one of the most pivotal conversations of his life? If Sondland is smart, he’ll just fess up now, revise his testimony, and hope that it ends up being enough to save him from a perjury referral.
