Section: European Voice (EU)
NATO will contemplate plan to address Macron complaints
NATO will think for a bit about how to prove it’s not brain dead. At a meeting Wednesday of NATO foreign ministers, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that allies were receptive to a proposal put forward by Germany to form an expert group, led by Stoltenberg, that would review aspects of the alliance’s operations — a move widely...
‘The answer is yes’: Sondland affirms ‘quid pro quo’ in Ukraine dealings
President Donald Trump’s handpicked Ukraine adviser Gordon Sondland says Trump conditioned a valuable White House meeting for Ukraine’s new president on his willingness to launch investigations into Trump’s Democratic adversaries, including former Vice President Joe Biden. “Was there a “quid pro quo?” Sondland, the U.S....
Sondland, a crucial yet flawed witness, could upend impeachment probe
Gordon Sondland is in trouble. The U.S. ambassador to the European Union has been cast as a potentially decisive witness to allegations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his Democratic rivals — and possibly conditioned a $400 million package of military aid on his counterpart’s agreement. Unlike...
Daylong impeachment slog heightens anticipation for Gordon Sondland
WASHINGTON — There’s a Gordon Sondland-sized gap in the House’s impeachment inquiry. The unconventional ambassador to the European Union — deployed by U.S. President Donald Trump to help squeeze Ukraine to investigate his political adversaries — has been the omnipresent shadow behind the series of witnesses who have testified publicly...
Sondland said he was acting on Trump’s orders, aide told investigators
Tim Morrison, a top White House national security aide, told impeachment investigators that Gordon Sondland — a U.S. ambassador at the center of the Ukraine scandal imperiling Donald Trump’s presidency — claimed to be acting on Trump’s orders, and in fact was regularly in touch with him. Though other impeachment witnesses have...
Diplomat: Sondland told Trump Ukraine would investigate Bidens
A U.S. State Department official told House impeachment investigators on Friday that he overheard Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, telling U.S. President Donald Trump that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to” — including publicly announcing an investigation targeting Trump’s...
White House releases summary of Trump’s first call with Ukraine’s Zelenskiy
The White House on Friday released a document summarizing President Donald Trump’s first phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in April of this year, seeking to bolster its claim that Trump did nothing wrong in his dealings with the Eastern European leader. The tone of the call, which was blasted out moments...
Dutch investigators appeal for help tying Russia to downed aircraft
The Dutch-led investigation into the missile strike that destroyed a passenger airliner over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 issued a new call for public assistance on Thursday, hoping to corroborate evidence indicating Russian government officials had a role in attack. The flight, Malaysia Airlines 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lampur, known as MH-17,...
Hungarian Commission candidate blocked by Parliament committee
MEPs declined to give approval to Hungary’s candidate to join incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s top team, instead asking the longtime diplomat to answer additional questions in writing. The decision by members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs not to green light Olivér Várhelyi...
Trump exposed: A brutal day for the president
Perhaps it was George Kent’s bow tie, which looked like it was paying homage to Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, but a dramatic day of testimony on Capitol Hill sent the mind back to one of the more compelling vignettes to emerge from that earlier scandal. Richard Nixon was relaxing, in his own fashion, with West Wing hatchet man Charles...
