gordon sondland, a wealthy trump donor turned diplomat outlined his opening statement to congressional investigators that he did not have any advanced knowledge of a scheme to use u.s. foreign policy to promote trump's political interests and that he was not aware that releasing foreign aid was conditional to ukraine launching the desired investigations. according to text messages turned over to congress by kurt volker, the state department's former special envoy for ukraine, sondland had said in an early september text message exchange with william taylor the top american diplomat in ukraine that the president had been clear there was no quid pro quo between the aid and investigations of the bidens. taylor had said that it was crazy the aid was being withheld for help with a political campai campaign. sondland called trump after a career u.s. official in kiev