Breaking: Sondland to tell Congress Ann Yovanovich was "great"

[Leghorn21]

Breaking via NBC: U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon
Sondland will tell Congress he thought Marie Yovanovitch
was "great" and that he has nothing negative to say about
her performance as ambassador to Ukraine, despite her
removal from the job by Trump.

Link to tweet

[DrToast]

1. Why is this guy leaking so much info?

It almost seems like he intends to protect Trump and is trying to set his appearance up as being reasonable.

[drray23]

2. He is trying to save his ass.

He is realizing that tying his boat to Trump's is not a good idea anymore. Amongst other things people are talking about boycotting his hotels. Playing ambassador was fun but now that he is in trouble he can't get there fast enough to testify to congress..

[Tanuki]

9. Trying to save his own hotel chain post-impeachment.

[Cousin Dupree]

3. I predict Mr. Sondland is going to be in a world of hurt when he testifies

[Thomas Hurt]

4. Dude thought he was buying a mil worth of prestige and power...

and all he got was screwed by Trump.

[NCLefty]

7. Everyone seems to ignore the previous 5,000 people Trump screwed over. What is with that? :p

[Thomas Hurt]

8. venality and cupidity...

[Princess Turandot]

5. Here's a rather informative article about him in Oregon-Live from early October..

In an interview with Politico/Europe in mid-Septermber, shortly before the whistleblower revelation, he said that Europeans need to realize they’ve been unduly hostile to the President. “He’s a hell of a lot of fun,” Sondland said. “I think they would enjoy his company.”

Who is Gordon Sondland? Portland hotel magnate’s stunning climb to Trump inner circle lands him in impeachment scandal

...The whistleblower report mentions Sondland by name and claims he met twice with Ukrainian officials along with Kurt Volker, the State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, to help them “understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving from official U.S. channels on the one hand and from Mr. Giuliani on the other.” The report also mentioned Volker and Sondland advised Ukrainian officials “how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy.”

(snip)

By 2007, Sondland was sufficiently connected and adequately flush enough to become a bundler in Romney’s presidential bid.

In 2016, he switched allegiance to Trump. But he and his wife seemingly cut their ties to the divisive candidate. The couple dropped out of a fundraiser they were slated to host. They publicly repudiated Trump for his treatment of a Muslim-American family whose son had been a soldier and had been killed in the Middle East.“ Trump’s constantly evolving positions diverge from their personal beliefs and values on so many levels” that the couple could no longer support him, a spokesperson for the couple said at the time.

But after Trump won the presidency, Sondland moved quickly to regain Trump’s graces. His companies donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

(snip)

Gotta love a guy who sticks by his principles!

[Leghorn21]

6. Many thanks for this background info, Princess!!

Yeah, he’s nothing if not...malleable, eh? Interesting!