Gordon Sondland

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Person.png Gordon Sondland   Twitter WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(diplomat, businessperson)
Gordon Sondland.jpg
Born16 July 1957
NationalityUS
Alma materUniversity of Washington
SpouseKatherine Durant
Former United States Ambassador to the EUTemplate:Job=

Gordon David Sondland is an American diplomat and businessman. He was the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018[1] to 2020.[2] Sondland is also the founder and former chairman of Provenance Hotels. In November 2019, Sondland testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. He was fired by Trump on February 7, 2020, two days after the conclusion of Trump's impeachment trial.[3]

Early life

Sondland was born to a Jewish family[4][5] in Mercer Island, Washington,[6] the son of Frieda (Piepsch) and Gunther Sondland.[7][8] His mother fled Germany before the Second World War[9] to Uruguay, where after the war she reunited with his father, who had served in the French Foreign Legion. In 1953, the Sondlands relocated to Seattle where they opened a dry-cleaning business. Sondland has a sister 18 years his senior. He attended the University of Washington but dropped out and became a commercial real estate salesman.[10]

In 1985, Sondland raised $7.8 million from friends and his wealthy brother-in-law and purchased the Roosevelt Hotel, a bankrupt Seattle hotel.[11]

During the 2016 United States presidential election, Sondland initially supported Donald Trump, but cancelled a fundraiser after Trump's attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan. At the time, a spokesperson for Sondland said that Trump's "positions do not align with [Sondland's] personal beliefs and values."[12] In April 2017, it was revealed that Sondland donated $1 million to the Donald Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee through four LLCs: BV-2 LLC, Dunson Cornerstone LLC, Buena Vista Investments LLC, and Dunson Investments LLC.[13][14]

United States ambassador to the European Union

Sondland was a vocal opponent of the construction of the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport gas across the Baltic Sea to the EU.[15]. He also pushed for the EU countries to follow US sanctions in other cases, including Iran.

Trump impeachment trial

During the Impeachment trial of Donald Trump which began on January 16, 2020, and ended on February 5, The Washington Post wrote that Sondland's House testimony played a "central role" in the trial, reporting that House testimony was used both for and against a case for Trump's alleged attempt to use a quid pro quo to persuade Zelensky to deliver dirt on Biden in exchange for congressional funding for Ukraine. Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff opened with a Sondland statement in which he said , “Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously with regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.” But Trump's attorneys used Sondland's earlier statement wherein he said that Trump told him that he wanted “no quid pro quo” and what they saw as Sondland's "tendency to portray his uninformed opinions and presumptions as fact"[16]



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References

  1. ↑ {https://www.congress.gov/nomination/115th-congress/1945
  2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200208075021/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/alexander-vindman-gordon-sondland-fired.html |
  3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200208075021/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/alexander-vindman-gordon-sondland-fired.html
  4. ↑ https://www.c-span.org/video/?447377-1/eu-nominee-gordon-sondland-testifies-confirmation-hearing
  5. ↑ https://expo.oregonlive.com/news/erry-2018/07/cdbfd3400b3583/portland-hotelier-who-gave-1-m.html
  6. ↑ https://www.knkx.org/post/gordon-sondland-ambassador-testifying-trump-impeachment-inquiry-has-ties-puget-sound-region
  7. ↑ https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?n=frieda-sondland&pid=179177299&fhid=2475
  8. ↑ https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/ohc/id/1784
  9. ↑ https://religionnews.com/2019/11/13/why-are-so-many-players-in-the-impeachment-trial-jewish/ quote=Finally, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, is also Jewish, though unlike the others he was born in the United States to a couple that escaped the Holocaust.
  10. ↑ https://fortune.com/2019/10/17/who-is-gordon-sondland-testimony/
  11. ↑ https://fortune.com/2019/10/17/who-is-gordon-sondland-testimony/
  12. ↑ https://www.wweek.com/news/2016/08/07/two-portland-hotel-executives-disavow-donald-trump-after-being-listed-among-his-event-sponsors/
  13. ↑ https://theintercept.com/2017/04/21/portland-executive-covertly-donates-1-million-to-inauguration-after-being-shamed-over-trump-support
  14. ↑ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/04/250-donors-shelled-out-100k-or-more-for-trumps-inauguration/
  15. ↑ https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-china/news/us-eu-should-clean-the-house-and-deal-with-china-us-ambassador/
  16. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gordon-sondland-plugs-away-in-brussels-while-playing-a-central-role-in-trumps-impeachment-trial/2020/01/22/13fb1902-3c85-11ea-8872-5df698785a4e_story.html
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