He initially testified in Schiff's Star Chamber secret hearings that he had no knowledge of a quid pro quo. But then he said that other people testifying caused him to suddenly remember that there was one.
That in itself is odd and questionable; who's going to forget that they told officials from the Ukraine that if they didn't investigate Biden they wouldn't get aid?
But then it got better. Having passed Schiff's secret hearings auditions, probably due to the change in his testimony, Ambassador Sondland appeared in Schiff's public hearings. Which was bad for him and the Democrats because despite Schiff's best efforts he couldn't keep Republicans from asking Sondland questions.
When asked Sondland was forced to admit that he had talked to Trump about quid pro quos. When Sondland asked Trump if there was a quid pro quo Sondland testified that not only did Trump say no but that Trump said he, Trump, didn't want a quid pro quo.
Now given that Sondland knew that when he suddenly "remembered" that there was a quid pro quo it's unclear how we can believe his testimony that there was a quid pro quo.
Even worse for the Democrats under questioning Sondland admitted that he'd just "presumed" there was a quid pro quo.
In fact the key thing that Sondland had magically remembered was that he, Sondland, had told Andriy Yermak, the advisor to Ukraine President Zelensky, that the US aid to Ukraine wouldn't be released until Ukraine announced and investigation into Burisma; the company that bribed Joe Biden via his son Hunter.
Before today that claim was problematic since Zelensky has said he never knew of any quid pro quo demands from Trump.
The Sondland story then was that after he magically remembered that there was a quid pro quo even though he also knew for a fact that Trump himself had said there wasn't one and that he knew that he didn't have anyone telling him there was a quid pro quo the people he was supposedly making demands of said that they didn't know of any demands.
So prior to today's Time's story we had Sondland changing his story with his final story being pretty much self contradictory.
But today Time did what real journalists are supposed to do; they asked Andriy Yermak about what happened.
Yermak was very clear. He has a good memory and he's never talked with Sondland about anything. Sure they exchanged a "Hello. How are you?" in passing but he's never ever had a private talk with Sondland.
Which means that prior to entering Schiff's secret Star Chamber hearing Sondland's memory of there being no quid pro quo were correct.
While we can speculate what happened in Schiff's dungeon there are two things to keep in mind.
First Democrats are quite willing to indict people who didn't lie for lying; ask General Flynn. Could Schiff have said that since Taylor was testifying that Sondland had said something that Sondland originally said he didn't say that he, Schiff, would indite Sondland unless Sondland changed his testimony?
Second we now know that during the Kavanaugh hearings Democrats tried to force a witness to change her story and lie. The only remotely credible woman claiming that Kavanaugh was a monster was Christine Blasey-Ford. The problem, from the Democrats perspective, was that her story sounded made up. Even worse she'd claimed that a lifelong friend of hers, Leland Keyser, said that she had never been at a party with Kavanaugh and Blasey-Ford. When even a lifelong friend who Blakey-Ford said was there didn't back up her already rather outlandish testimony no unbiased observer thought that Blasey-Ford was credible.
Which is why Democrat "friends" of Keyser pressured her to change her story and support Blasey-Ford. They even threatened to release embarrassing personal information about Keyser if she didn't change her story.
Could similar pressure have been applied to Sondland?
It doesn't really matter however vis a vis impeachment. As of now there isn't a single first hand witness who has testified that Trump asked for a quid pro quo of any sort.
That's why Democrats are now saying that they have to impeach Trump because even though he did nothing wrong he had the wrong thoughts when he was doing something that was legal.
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