Was there a quid pro quo?

As I testified previously, with regard

to the requested White House call and the White House

meeting, the answer is yes.

On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland appeared before the House

intelligence committee to give testimony

in the impeachment hearings.

His testimony was a challenge to the defence that the White

House, the Republicans and Donald Trump have maintained

all this time in a couple of different ways.

One, the confirmation of the quid pro quo

was a direct contradiction of what Donald Trump has said all

this time, that there was none.

And secondly, the fact that Sondland

pointed to so many other Trump administration officials,

including Mike Pompeo, secretary of state,

and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff,

makes it all the harder for the White House

to maintain its stance of no co-operation

with the impeachment inquiry.

Democrats have subpoenaed several officials

who have refused to testify because the White House has

ordered them not to.

We now can see the veneer has been torn away.

Just why Secretary Pompeo and President Donald Trump do not

want any of these documents provided to Congress

because, apparently they show, as Ambassador Sondland has

testified, that the knowledge of this scheme to condition

official acts, a White House meeting and $400m in security

assistance to an ally at war with Russia,

was conditioned on political favours the president wanted

for his re-election.

Gordon Sondland is in a tricky spot.

He is still the US ambassador to the European Union.

After his testimony on Wednesday he headed back on a flight back

to Brussels.

And so the question is, how long can he stay in this job?

The testimony that he gave today was damaging to the president,

in several ways.

Clearly, any relationship that he had with Trump

probably has not survived this process.

And he himself kind of laughed about that possibility.

He was asked, Trump once said that you were a great American,

and then he later said that he hardly knew you.

And Sondland sort of almost cheerfully said, easy come,

easy go.