Gordon Sondland arrived late to Donald Trump’s party but still snagged an ambassador’s post.
According to the Federal Elections Commission, Sondland, an Oregon hotelier, never donated to Trump’s candidacy. Rather, in 2015 he gave $25,000 to a political action committee aligned with Jeb Bush and $2,500 directly to the former Florida governor’s campaign. After Bush dropped out of the Republican primary, Sondland cut checks to a host of candidates but stopped short of Trump.
A spokesperson decried Trump’s beliefs and values but eventually ambition got the better of Sondland. With the 2016 election done, Sondland ponied up $1m to Trump’s inaugural committee via four limited-liability companies. Opacity mattered. Trump posted Sondland to Brussels, as US ambassador to the European Union.
Fame found Sondland there – with a vengeance. He emerged as a key witness in Trump’s first impeachment, enmeshed with Rudy Giuliani and Hunter Biden in investigations of approaches to Ukraine for political dirt. After Trump’s Senate acquittal, the president and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, cut Sondland loose.
Now comes Sondland’s attempt at image restoration. In his memoir, he criticizes Trump and his family but tries to stay close to the fold. With the exception of Steve Bannon, no one has managed that. Then again, Bannon has continuously demonstrated his value to Trump.
Sondland brands Trump as a “dick” and a narcissist and lashes into his psyche, calling him “a man with a fragile ego who wants more than anything to feed that ego the way an addict would feed a habit”.
In the next breath, however, Sondland contends that Trump was “essentially right about many things, including how out of whack our relationship with Europe has become”.
On matters diplomatic, Sondland also skips consideration of Trump’s abiding admiration for Vladimir Putin. Last February, the former president lavished praise on his Russian idol and derided Nato as “not so smart”. In September, Trump went full Tucker Carlson. At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he contrasted Putin and Xi Jinping of China with Joe Biden, the man who kicked Trump out of the White House.
“I’ve got to know a lot of the foreign leaders, and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game,” Trump said.
Authoritarianism makes him swoon. Xi “rules with an iron fist, 1.5 billion people, yeah I’d say he’s smart”. From Sondland? Crickets, except to say that while in office, Trump “hated” Ukraine but hoped he would like Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Sondland tries to lay part of the blame for the war in Ukraine on Biden. No doubt, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was ugly. But Sondland expresses his belief that “the practical, no-nonsense approach pursued by Trump, which I also pursued while ambassador in Europe, could have kept Putin in check”.
Jared Kushner also receives ambivalent treatment. Early on, Sondland heaps praise: “Jared is very smart, highly effective, and highly criticized because of envy.” He “quietly but effectively used his leverage in the family across the interagency writ large”. Few would dispute Kushner’s clout in the Trump White House.
Later, though, Sondland says his relationship with Kushner “cooled” over impeachment. He points fingers: “In retrospect, Kushner likely knew that Pompeo was going to can me … maybe Kushner was the one to tell the president to get rid of me.”
Sondland dumps on the libs, trashes the “deep state” and sings the praises of Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary. Hardcore Trumpers despise Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker they deride as a “globalist”. Just ask Bannon or Peter Navarro. Then again, Bannon has been sentenced for contempt of Congress and is under indictment for fraud and Navarro goes to trial in weeks. Like Bannon, he defied the January 6 committee.
Sondland lauds the Abraham Accords; calls David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, a “stud”; but stays mum over Charlottesville and Trump’s compliments for neo-Nazis. White supremacists and Kanye West have a home in the Republican party. The party of Lincoln is no more.
At times, Sondland’s praise is unalloyed. He voices his respect and admiration for Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine; William Taylor, her deputy; and Kurt Volker, the former ambassador to Nato who became Trump’s troubleshooter on Ukraine and Crimea.
There is also unstinting criticism of Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“They’re sycophants who built careers on dissembling and playing roles that aren’t authentic,” Sondland opines. Unmentioned is that those four reflect the Republican base and its anger far better than Sondland.
He also has jabs for the Ukraine whistleblower, Alexander Vindman, and two former Trump advisers, Fiona Hill and John Bolton. In her impeachment testimony, Hill said Bolton, then national security adviser, described Sondland helping to “cook up” a “drug deal” on Ukraine. Sondland’s disdain is understandable.
Pompeo also earns rebuke. According to Sondland, the secretary of state reneged on a promise to reimburse him for impeachment legal fees. In May 2021, Sondland commenced a lawsuit in US district court, seeking to recover $1.8m from Pompeo and the government. Pompeo was dropped as a defendant on jurisdictional grounds, the case transferred. Discovery will run into May next year, Pompeo a possible witness.
In the here and now, Sondland could have used a sharper proofreader. He writes that Mitt Romney lost the 2011 presidential election and that Trump assumed office in January 2016. The dates are 2012 and 2017, respectively.
The book concludes with this admission: “I’m a touch arrogant, a bit showy, and yes, I like attention.”
The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World is published in the US by Post Hill Press
