Trump shouldn’t testify in impeachment hearings, Pam Bondi says
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi stumbled a bit Wednesday morning during her first interview in her new role as President Donald Trump’s defender-in-chief on all things impeachment.
Bondi, who was hired this month to act as the face of the White House’s response to the ongoing impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives, repeatedly misidentified Gordon Sondland — the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a key impeachment witness testifying Wednesday before Congress — during an interview on CBS This Morning.
“He was ambassador to the Ukraine. He is ambassador to the Ukraine,” Bondi said. “The president knows him. The president does not know him very well.”
The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine is William Taylor.
Bondi, who was not made available by the Trump campaign to speak to the Miami Herald on Friday during a visit to Palm Beach, also acknowledged in the CBS interview Wednesday that Trump has a relationship with Sondland, a major campaign donor who was appointed ambassador after Trump’s election.
Sondland was among the dignitaries involved this year in discussions with Ukraine’s government about the Trump administration’s decision to withhold military aide approved by Congress. Sondland said in a written statement released prior to Bondi’s appearance on CBS Wednesday that Trump was keeping the aide from Ukraine in an attempt to pressure the country to investigate the president’s political rivals.
During the period in question, Sondland — who referred to the situation in his statement as a “quid pro quo” — reportedly spoke with the president by cell phone from a Ukraine restaurant during this period, a conversation he said Wednesday was related to rapper A$AP Rocky’s international legal troubles.
“He clearly had conversations with the president of the United States,” Bond said Wednesday morning, without discussing the contents of Trump or Sondland’s communications. “He’s the ambassador of the Ukraine.”
Otherwise, Bondi hit a number of White House talking points, arguing that House Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry is a “sham” that has underwhelmed the American public.
She also said Trump wants to testify as the House Intelligence Committee proceeds with public testimony but likely would not.
“Of course he wants to testify because he did nothing wrong,” said Bondi, who has long had a relationship with Trump, dating back to before he was president. “But do I think it’s likely he’s going to testify? Probably not. No one would advise him to testify because this is a sham court.”
