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On a day when the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) began impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump over Trump's alleged efforts to convince Ukrainian officials to investigate Hunter Biden, the Daily Beast is reporting that Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, communicated about his efforts with the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland.
Sondland is a Portland hotelier who contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration.
"This summer," the Daily Beast reports, "Giuliani briefed U.S. diplomats, including special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, on his work in Ukraine and his efforts to convince the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. But Giuliani confirmed to The Daily Beast that he also briefed another diplomat: U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland."
Trump and Giuliani have been eager for the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter Biden's business dealings with a Ukrainian company that paid him as much as $50,000 a month at a time when his father, then vice president, was in charge of overseeing relations with the Ukraine, including U.S. aid.
"It [Ukraine] wasn't exactly an unknown topic for Sondland," the Daily Beast reports. "The ambassador was also closely involved with the Trump phone call to Zelensky in which Trump repeatedly pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens."
The story says Sondland discussed the phone call between Trump and Zelensky with the Ukrainian media.
"'I spoke with both of them before and after this conversation," Sondland told Ukraine's state-run news agency after the phone call. "The conversation was very successful. They found a common language immediately." The two leaders discussed Ukraine's civil war, energy security, and "the rule of law," Sondland said in July."
Sondland is the founder and CEO of Provenance Hotels, whose properties include six hotels in downtown Portland: the Heathman, the Sentinel, Hotel deLuxe, Hotel Lucia, Dossier and the Woodlark.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WW.