Dems used Sondland’s testimony that Yermak completely denies

Time is reporting exclusively today that Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to the President of Ukraine, is contradicting key testimony by Ambassador Gordon Sondland who is responsible for a lot of misstatements.

This misstatement is big.

SONDLAND SAID

Sondland testified before Adam Schiff’s ‘impeachment inquiry’ that he’d pulled Yermak aside after a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence. He told him that he likely wouldn’t get the aid unless they announced investigations into Hunter Biden and Ukraine’s 2016 interference:

“I told Mr. Yermak that I believed that the resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland testified.

This statement was allegedly intended to announce two investigations: one into the discredited claims that Ukraine helped Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the 2016 presidential election, and another related to the work that Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden, did for a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings, while his father was the U.S. Vice President.

The Democrat impeachment report out of the intelligence committee includes this statement:

Based on the testimony from Sondland and other witnesses, the final report from the House Intelligence Committee concluded last week that Sondland made this offer of a quid pro quo clear to Yermak that day in Warsaw. “Following this meeting, Ambassador Sondland pulled aside President Zelensky’s advisor, Mr. Yermak, to explain that the hold on security assistance was conditioned on the public announcement of the Burisma/Biden and the 2016 election interference investigations,” the report states.

IT NEVER HAPPENED SAYS YERMAK

Yermak says it’s not true and none of this ever happened:

“Gordon and I were never alone together,” he said when TIME asked about the Warsaw meeting. “We bumped into each other in the hallway next to the escalator, as I was walking out.” He recalls that several members of the American and Ukrainian delegations were also nearby, as well as bodyguards and hotel staff, though he was not sure whether any of them heard his brief conversation with Sondland. “And I remember – everything is fine with my memory – we talked about how well the meeting went. That’s all we talked about,” Yermak says.

Sondland is confused and a liar. We say that judging from his pattern of responses. In any case, whether you believe Yermak or Sondland, it presents a problem for the impeachment statement.

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