Seattle businessman turned Ambassador Gordon Sondland had planned to give a deposition to the House Intelligence Committee this morning, Then, overnight, the White House ordered him not to.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent the morning in Seattle discussing plans to lower drug prices, then she spoke with reporters about President Trump's stonewalling, "The president is obstructing Congress from getting the facts that we need. That is an abuse of power for him to react in this way."
Sondland was supposed to testify about his response to a text message calling it crazy to withhold security assistance from Ukraine for help with a political campaign. Sondland responded the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quo.
"His snubbing of his nose at the vision of our founders, his disloyalty to the Constitution is something that we have to study," said Pelosi.
Gordon Sondland is a 1975 graduate of Mercer Island High School. He grew up to own a chain of hotels, including Seattle's Hotel Theodore and Hotel Max.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray reacted after an event supporting Planned Parenthood. "We need to know the truth and we need to find the facts and we cannot find the facts if he is impeding people from coming forward."
We were with Sen. Murray 20 years ago, during the impeachment of President Clinton. "I'm one of the few people in this country who will if it comes to the Senate have sat through 2 impeachments," Murray said. Watch Essex Porter's 1999 report below.
She drew on that experience when we asked whether the Republican majority in today's Senate would ever vote to convict Donald Trump.
"It's very overwhelming when you're sitting in that seat in judgement making that decision and I found that with President Clinton's impeachment everybody sat there every single minute, everyone listened and made a judgement at the end of the day," Murray said.
The White House today announced that it will not cooperate with what its letter calls "a partisan and unconstitutional inquiry."
The House Intelligence Committee has moved to subpoena Gordon Sondland.
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