Sondland says specifically that Trump was interested in corruption. Read it yourself.
As a matter of fact, Sondland wrote the opposite. Sondland wrote he and the career ofcicials like Marie, Fiona, Volker, etc., were indeed focused on U.S. interests including anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
In opposition to that, Trump rejected the sound advice from the professional, long-careered state department experts on Ukraine, and instead directed the team to talk to Rudy..which Sondland did not approve of.
However, President Trump was skeptical that Ukraine was serious about reforms and anti-corruption, and he directed those of us present at the meeting to talk to Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns. It was apparent to all of us that
8 the key to changing the President’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani.....
We were also disappointed by the President’s direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani. Our view was that the men and women of the State Department, not the President’s personal lawyer, should take responsibility for all aspects of U.S.foreign policy towards Ukraine.
However, based on the President’s direction, we were faced with a choice: We could abandon the goal of a White House meeting for President Zelensky, which we all believed was crucial to strengthening U.S .- Ukrainian ties and furthering long-held U.S . foreign policy goals in the region; or we could do as President Trump directed and talk toMr. Giuliani to address the President’s concerns
Sondlands believed that since Trump was directing them to Rudy, rather than taking their expert advice, that it put the American-Ukranian relationship at risk. Yes Fletch, that includes all things we are working on with Ukraine, including anti-corruption efforts.
Sondland is clearly communicating that Trump is not interested in working with Ukraine, unless they go through Rudy...who is pushing for the dirt on Biden. Which simplifies to: Trump won't work through normal state department process on anti-corruption with Ukraine, unless he gets dirt on Biden via Rudy's push.
It's all there for you Fletch, you just can't read.
But I did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the President’s 2020 reelection campaign
We do know that's true, Sondland is just being diplomatic...the facts support that Rudy's agenda included just that.
Further:
Taking direction from the President, as I must, I spoke with Mr. Giuliani for that limited purpose. In these short conversations, Mr. Giuliani emphasized that the President wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing Ukraine to look into anticorruption issues. Mr. Giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two anti-corruption investigatory topics of importance for the President.
What Sondland is writing, is that he was not aware of Trump, and Rudy's efforts to pressure Ukraine specifically to help Trump in the 2020, as he worked with only brief interaction with Rudy. In his only brief interaction with Rudy on this, Rudy did in fact push the 2020 election dirt on Biden and the DNC/Crowdstrike issue, as important concerns to require before getting a meeting with the U.S. Of course, we now know from other sources that's exactly what happened, Rudy tried to insert Trump's desire explicitly for help in the 2020 in the form of dirt on Biden and DNC, in return for that meeting. Fortunately career officials working it, along with Ukraine, slow-walked this and eventually tabled it...they did not comply with Trump's solicitation.
Anyone can read that he did NOT ever specifically claim that "Trump was interested in corruption". Well, implicitly he does seem to indicate Trump WAS interested in corrupting the process...but I assume you didn't mean that, even though it's a correct interpretation.
