Trump ordered US officials to work with his lawyer on Ukraine, envoy says

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump directed senior US officials to talk directly to his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, about US policy in Ukraine, raising concern that the president was outsourcing American foreign policy to a private citizen, the US ambassador to the European Union said on Thursday.

The envoy, Gordon Sondland, told lawmakers in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry against Trump that he did not understand “until much later” that Giuliani’s agenda included a push for Ukraine to investigate a domestic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

In prepared testimony to the Democratic-led inquiry, Sondland said he and two other officials - Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Ukraine Special Envoy Kurt Volker - were disappointed in Trump’s May order, but he followed it anyway. Sondland said he felt foreign policy should be the work of the State Department, not the president’s personal lawyer.

Sondland, a Republican Trump political donor and a wealthy Oregon hotelier before being named by the president to his envoy post last year, also said that “inviting a foreign government to undertake investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming US election would be wrong.”

His written testimony underscored the pivotal role of Giuliani in the Ukraine scandal. The impeachment inquiry centers on Trump’s request on a July telephone call that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy investigate Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination to face Trump.

Before the call, Giuliani had been working to persuade Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

At issue is Trump pressing a vulnerable US ally to dig up dirt on a domestic political opponent, inviting foreign meddling in an American election after Russia interfered in the 2016 election, according to US intelligence agencies and a special counsel probe, to boost his candidacy.

The impeachment inquiry could lead to the House passing formal charges - known as articles of impeachment - which would prompt a trial in the Senate on whether to remove Trump from office. The Senate is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, who have shown little inclination toward removing him.

Sondland said that on May 23, three days after Zelenskiy’s inauguration, US officials who had attended debriefed Trump and key aides at the White House.

The ambassador said the officials taking part in the meeting emphasized the strategic importance of Ukraine and the importance of the relationship with Zelenskiy, who he called a reformer planning to fight corruption.