Dan Abrams: Gordon Sondland is Trump’s Enforcer; the ‘Michael Cohen of Ukraine’
In advance of the highly anticipated testimony of Gordon Sondland, ABC News’ Chief Legal Analyst and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams compared the European Union Ambassador to one of President Donald Trump’s closet, and notably, former political allies.
Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos noted how so many other witnesses brought before the House Intel committee hearings have contradicted things that Ambassador Sondland has said in his deposition.
“Sondland was basically expressing the view of the president and that’s why he’s so important,” Abrams explained, before making a comparison that likely made the Sondland family wince. “He is sort of the Michael Cohen of Ukraine,” Dan offered, adding “the kind of enforcer on behalf of the president.”
Michael Cohen is, of course, Trump’s former personal attorney who is now serving time in prison for a number of convictions, most of which center around campaign finance statues he ran afoul of.
Dan continued by posing the rhetorical question at the heart of Wednesday’s hearing: “How directly is Sondland going to say the president told me to do this, not Rudy Giuliani, not Pompeo, but the president?”
Stephanopoulos put a fine point on this, reframing that question as “how closely does he tie the president to this and how closely does he tie Rudy to the president and one thing we heard from Ambassador Taylor is this is not a one-off but had five conversations with the president.”
Abrams concurred with the premise before noting what viewers can expect in today’s blockbuster hearing.
“We know he’s going to say that a White House meeting, at the very least, was conditioned upon investigation into 2016, investigation into Burisma,” Dan explained, adding “and that’s sort of what Sondland’s job was in this Ukraine business, to basically say, look, we can get this meeting. We can get you the White House meeting but you’re going to have to do these other things.”
Watch above via ABC News.
