As Democrats work to protect the whistleblower, whose lawyer says he receives regular threats due to the complaint that touched off the current impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, another major figure in this week’s hearings says the proceedings are taking a personal toll on him as well, Fox News reported.
U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said in public testimony Wednesday that his family had received “many” threats as a result of his role in the impeachment inquiry, under questioning from Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, on the personal repercussions he’d dealt with since being pulled into the scandal.
“We have countless emails apparently to my wife, our properties are being picketed and boycotted,” Sondland said.
Conaway began the questioning by bringing up Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff’s calls for respect toward witnesses. He then contrasted the guidance from Schiff, D-Calif., against Democrat-led calls to boycott Sondland’s hotels in Oregon.
“The chairman also announces at every hearing that he will not tolerate, and I agree with him, any witness intimidation or any threats or any issues of trying to bully a witness,” Conaway said. “Congressman Earl Blumenauer from Oregon has in fact called for a boycott of your hotel chain or your hotels in Oregon. I’m assuming he believes that will harm you to the point that you will then be bullied into doing whatever he wants done.”
Sondland agreed with Conaway’s statement before also confirming the congressman’s assertion that Blumenauer’s comments “gave rise to demonstrations at your hotels that made customers have to weave in and out of the demonstrators to try to actually get into the hotels.”
Sondland’s hotel properties have also come under siege on Yelp, a website on which users can post reviews of businesses, Fox News adds.
Be the first to comment