New Ukraine Documents: Gordon Sondland Emails

Last week, American Oversight received another 200-plus pages of documents from the State Department related to the Ukraine scandal. The records, Gordon Sondland’s emails from May through September 2019, include messages to an investor about a “Ukraine deal” as well as emails mentioning the Ukraine pressure campaign.

The documents were released to American Oversight in response to our lawsuit against the State Department for Sondland’s communications with Rudy Giuliani or about Giuliani’s efforts on behalf of President Donald Trump to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Sondland, who testified in the House impeachment inquiry that when it came to the scheme, “everyone was in the loop,” was one of the “three amigos” tasked with running the shadow diplomacy operation, along with former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. Sondland was ousted in February, shortly after Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

The set of documents released last week also include a number of emails about the May 2019 trip to Ukraine for the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Monday, American Oversight received records of Perry’s expenses from that trip, in response to a separate lawsuit against the Department of Energy. (You can read more about our other Ukraine-related lawsuits and the documents we have obtained here.)

Another email from late June 2019 references an “early draft readout,” but the message — sent to Volker, Energy Department adviser Samuel Buchan and former Perry chief of staff Brian McCormack — is redacted.

On July 29, 2019, Sondland received an email summarizing press coverage from a recent trip to Ukraine, including a mention of an article “alleging that you want to ensure ‘the Biden affair’—an investigation into former VP Biden’s ties through his son to an energy company in Ukraine—stays on track.”

You can view the full set of documents here.