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Gordon Sondland Is Likely to Face Tough Questions in Impeachment Hearing

The American ambassador to the European Union once boasted he could get President Trump on the phone. No more.

Gordon D. Sondland is likely to be pressed during Wednesday’s impeachment hearings about his earlier testimony and inconsistencies with other witness accounts.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Gordon D. Sondland, a West Coast hotelier and major Republican donor, gloried at first in his ability to hobnob with heads of state and parade his fledgling skills in international affairs after President Trump named him ambassador to the European Union last year.

That was before the glare of the House impeachment inquiry cast him in an unflattering light as one of Mr. Trump’s personal emissaries to Ukraine. Now national security officials describe him as “a free radical” in the delicate chemistry of diplomacy, an envoy with questionable ethical judgment and a disregard for security protocols whose notable strength was his seemingly direct line to the Oval Office.

“This has been a very bad experience for me,” Mr. Sondland testified last month at the start of the impeachment inquiry into whether Mr. Trump pressured Ukraine for his personal political gain.

It is likely to get worse.

At a public hearing on Wednesday, impeachment investigators are expected to confront Mr. Sondland about holes and inconsistencies in his closed-door testimony last month. Chief among them is his failure to disclose a July 26 phone call with Mr. Trump during which, another witness suggested, the two discussed whether Ukraine’s president would publicly announce an investigation into Mr. Trump’s political rival.

Other testimony has called into question whether Mr. Sondland played down what he and Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, did to press the president’s demands; whether he mischaracterized the opposition of officials on the National Security Council; and at what point it became clear to him that Mr. Trump wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation aimed at former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who hopes to deny him a second term in the White House.

Mr. Sondland is the witness who most concerns people close to Mr. Trump, several of them said, expressing worry that he interacted directly with the president about Ukraine and that they do not know what he will say. Mr. Sondland has already amended his testimony once, in writing.

Mr. Sondland’s statements look increasingly suspect, said Chuck Rosenberg, a former United States attorney and senior F.B.I. official who is following the hearings closely. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t come in now and tell the truth,” Mr. Rosenberg added.

Mr. Sondland’s recollection of his July 26 call with Mr. Trump might never have been questioned had not another American official overheard the conversation, conducted from Mr. Sondland’s lunch table on the terrace of a restaurant in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Mr. Trump was speaking so loudly that Mr. Sondland held the phone away from his ear, broadcasting the call to his dining companions.

David Holmes, an American Embassy official in Kyiv who had joined the ambassador for lunch, said he clearly heard Mr. Trump ask whether Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s newly installed president, was “going to do the investigation.” Mr. Sondland replied: “He’s going to do it.”

After hanging up, Mr. Sondland said that Mr. Trump did not care a whit about Ukraine but was focused on “big stuff,” like getting “the Biden investigation,” according to Mr. Holmes. His account clashes directly with Mr. Sondland’s statement that he recalled “no discussions with any State Department or White House official about former Vice President Biden or his son.” He also said he did not recall participating “in any effort to encourage an investigation into the Bidens.”

Even if Mr. Sondland is now a damaged witness, he remains an important one. So far, he is the only one cooperating with the inquiry who dealt directly with Mr. Trump on Ukraine. Another witness, Kurt D. Volker, the special envoy to Ukraine, participated in an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump early on, but took a back seat to Mr. Sondland after that.

For Mr. Sondland, a bald, blustery 62-year-old, the inquiry has upended his work.

He used to boast to others that he could ring the president directly, complaining to one national security official that he was harder to reach than Mr. Trump. He told another colleague that Mr. Trump was often in a bad mood in the early morning. And Mr. Sondland became impatient when White House operators failed to promptly connect him to the Oval Office. Now his every exchange with the president is under scrutiny.

Mr. Sondland once described himself as a “results-oriented,” take-charge type. Now investigators are asking him why he pushed a so-called deliverable for the president — an announcement of the investigations — that other officials have said was ethically wrong and ran counter to American national security interests.

Mr. Sondland also liked to present himself as a refreshing alternative to hidebound bureaucrats. Now some of those same bureaucrats have described him as an aggressive operator who elbowed them out of the way, rejected time-honored protocols and turned his personal cellphone into a national security risk.

As national security adviser, John R. Bolton “was frustrated with Ambassador Sondland’s involvement in these issues — frankly in a lot of issues,” Timothy Morrison, a onetime top deputy to Mr. Bolton, testified. Although his concerns were widely shared, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to rein in Mr. Sondland, Mr. Morrison said.

Fiona Hill, Mr. Morrison’s predecessor, told investigators that “all kinds” of foreign officials were “appearing at the gates of the White House, calling on our personal phones” and demanding meetings that Mr. Sondland had unilaterally promised to them.

Besides Mr. Sondland’s July 26 call to Mr. Trump, the ambassador is expected to be questioned at Wednesday’s hearing about what he and the president discussed during another conversation the previous day. Mr. Sondland testified that he had a “nothing call” with Mr. Trump before the president’s now notorious conversation with Mr. Zelensky. But other witnesses said he told them he briefed the president on what to say to Mr. Zelensky.

Another likely focus is whether Mr. Mulvaney promised a White House meeting for Mr. Zelensky with Mr. Trump if Mr. Zelensky announced the investigations that Mr. Trump wanted.

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Fiona Hill on Capitol Hill after a closed hearing this month.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Both Ms. Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, another national security official, testified that Mr. Sondland told Ukrainian officials about Mr. Mulvaney’s pledge during July 10 meetings at the White House. Ms. Hill also testified that Mr. Sondland and Mr. Mulvaney met “on a regular basis.”

But Mr. Sondland testified that he did not recall relaying any such promise from Mr. Mulvaney. He added that they had “very, very few conversations.”

Yet another bone of contention is Mr. Sondland’s role as Mr. Trump’s intermediary with Ukraine — a role he shared with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. Mr. Sondland testified that he worked through William B. Taylor, the top American diplomat at the embassy in Kyiv, and through Mr. Volker, the special envoy.

“Without passing the buck, this was primarily Ambassador Taylor and Ambassador Volker’s file,” he testified, while he played a “support role.”

But other witnesses testified that Mr. Sondland was at the forefront of a shadow foreign policy toward Ukraine. “It was principally Sondland-led,” Mr. Morrison said.

Now, thanks to the impeachment inquiry, Mr. Sondland has plenty of room for the expansive role with Ukraine that he once craved. Mr. Volker, the special envoy, has resigned, as have three senior national security officials who criticized Mr. Sondland — Mr. Bolton, Ms. Hill and Mr. Morrison.

But the ambassador no longer seems eager to embrace the part. He testified that he had not spoken to any Ukrainian official since Mr. Trump in late September released the transcript of his call with Mr. Zelensky that set off the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Sondland said the whole affair was just too “contentious with the White House.”

He said that a top aide to Mr. Zelensky texted him once, asking “something like ‘Hello, how are you?”

He never replied.

Nicholas Fandos and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Sharon LaFraniere is an investigative reporter. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for national reporting on Donald Trump’s connections with Russia. More about Sharon LaFraniere

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Uncomfortable Spotlight for Envoy Who Boasted of Access to Trump. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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