A key diplomat at the center of an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump said he will testify before House committees despite efforts by the State Department to stop his deposition, according to his lawyers on Friday, Oct. 11.
“Notwithstanding the State Department’s current direction to not testify, Ambassador Sondland will honor the Committees’ subpoena, and he looks forward to testifying on Thursday,” the statement said.
His lawyers said that although Sondland will appear at the hearing, he will not be producing the “relevant documents” directed by the subpoena. They said the State Department has sole authority to produce such documents and that federal law and regulation prohibit their client from doing so.
The lawyers added that their client hopes they will be shared with the committees before his testimony.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.
Sondland was subpoenaed as part of the House Democrat’s impeachment inquiry that is centered on a whistleblower complaint detailing concerns about Trump’s conduct during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July. The whistleblower accused the president of leveraging his office and withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine to obtain “dirt” on a political opponent—2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, Trump defended his call, saying that his request for Ukraine’s assistance to look into Biden’s dealings was intended to investigate alleged corruption, not to look for information on a political opponent. In 2018, Biden boasted that he had pressured then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to remove a prosecutor who was investigating a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, where the former vice president’s son held a lucrative board position.
On Oct. 8, Trump defended the decision to stop Sondland from testifying, saying that he wanted the ambassador to testify but was concerned about the impeachment inquiry’s lack of due process and transparency.