White House blocks crucial witness from testifying to Congress

Donald Trump’s White House has blocked the US ambassador to the European Union from speaking to Congress after he was deposed by House committees investigating the president amid an impeachment inquiry.

Gordon Sondland reportedly did not appear for his closed-door meeting with Congress on Tuesday morning, as his attorney Robert Luskin said he had no choice following the White House orders.

“He is a sitting ambassador and employee of State and is required to follow their direction,” the attorney reportedly said.

Mr Sondland became enveloped in the president’s impeachment scandal after text messages and a whistleblower complaint revealed he was a witness to allegations against Mr Trump after his July phone call with Ukraine.

The text messages released by House Democrats show Mr Sondland working with another one of Mr Trump’s envoys to get Ukraine to agree to investigate any potential interference in the 2016 US election and of the energy company that appointed former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter to its board.

In exchange, the American officials dangled the offer of a Washington meeting with Mr Trump for Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Biden or his son.

The messages also show Mr Sondland trying to reassure a third diplomat that their actions were appropriate, but that they should take precautions by limiting their text messages.

“The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promise during his campaign,” he wrote, adding, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”

Like Mr Trump, who picked him, Mr Sondland cut an unconventional path to becoming a Washington power broker.

The son of German immigrants who fled the Nazis in the 1930s and later founded their own dry cleaning business in Seattle, Mr Sondland is best known in the Pacific Northwest as the founder of the Provenance Hotels chain.

Mr Sondland donated $1m (£818,235) to Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign before he was appointed to the ambassador position he now serves in.