REUTERSU.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland is set to throw Rudy Giuliani under the bus when he testifies to Congress this morning. Sondland has been at the heart of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Kyiv to investigate 2020 candidate Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and the 2016 presidential elections. But in his opening statement, which The Daily Beast obtained, he said he did not want to work with Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and that he only did so because it was the only way to improve U.S.-Ukraine relations.“Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States,” Sondland said. “We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.”Later in his testimony, he reiterated that point.“Let me say again: We weren’t happy with the President’s directive to talk with Rudy,” he said. “We did not want to involve Mr. Giuliani.”He also said Giuliani communicated with Ukrainian government officials “without our knowledge.” People Are Absolutely Trashing Gordon Sondland’s Hotels on YelpThe statement adds that he did not believe at the time that Giuliani’s involvement was improper. But he did believe that Giuliani’s exertion of pressure on Kyiv constituted a quid pro quo.“Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky,” Sondland’s statement says. “Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.”Sondland’s statements about Giuliani come at a time when the EU ambassador is under increasing scrutiny for his communications with President Trump about the investigations in Ukraine. He is likely to face intense questioning from House impeachment investigators Wednesday on those communications as well as his involvement in the controversial meeting in the Ward Room of the White House with Ukrainian officials July 10.Several other witnesses in the House impeachment inquiry have said that Sondland explicitly expressed to Ukrainian officials present the need for Ukraine to agree to the investigations in exchange for a White House visit for President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Daily Beast previously reported that Sondland grew emotional in the Ward Room meeting as he demanded the investigations from the Ukrainian officials. Gordon Sondland Stepped In ‘and Things Went Really Off the Rails’In his opening statement, Sondland says he does recall broaching the subject of investigations in the official meeting between former National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Ukrainian officials but does not mention the follow-up meeting in the Ward Room. He also says he does not remember any yelling taking place during his encounters with the Ukrainians that day.Sondland’s statement also says he “shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aid” with Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin who had visibility into the administration’s thinking on Ukraine. He also said that he kept senior State Department leadership “apprised” of what he was doing. Leadership there supported his work, he said, and knew that he and others were pursuing “a commitment to investigations.” “Our efforts were reported and approved,” he said. “Not once do I recall encountering objection.”As part of those efforts, Sondland came to believe the Ukrainians needed to announce the investigations Trump wanted in order to receive military aid. “By the end of the August, my belief was that if Ukraine did something to demonstrate a serious intention to fight corruption, specifically addressing Burisma and 2016 server, then the hold on military aid would be lifted,” he said. “2016 server” refers to a debunked conspiracy about the Democratic National Committee hack which claims that the Russians didn’t actually break into the Democratic Party’s servers. When Trump alluded to the conspiracy theory on his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian officials listening in were perplexed and had no idea what he was talking about. And Sondland said that White House officials knew about “the Ukraine efforts” as early as May 23, 2019. He also did not dispute testimony from Ambassador Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv, saying that when Sondland had a loud phone call with Trump, American diplomats overheard the president mentioning “investigations.” Sondland added that he didn’t remember details of that specific call.“Actually, I would have been more surprised if President Trump had not mentioned investigations, particularly given what we were hearing from Mr. Giuliani about the President’s concerns,” he said. Sondland’s statement also discussed the conversation he had on Sept. 1 in Warsaw with a top Zelensky aide. In their conversation, Sondland told that aide, Andriy Yermak, that Kyiv needed to release a statement about investigating the Bidens and the server if it wanted military aid the U.S. had already promised.“I really regret that the Ukrainians were placed in that predicament, but I do not regret doing what I could to try to break the logjam and to solve the problem,” he said. Sondland’s statement also says the process of preparing for his testimony has been “less than fair.” He noted that the State Department did not give him access to his own documents to prepare for his testimony, and that he could not work with his staff at the U.S. embassy in Brussels to prepare. He added that he asked the State Department and the White House for his materials multiple times, but they refused to let him see them. “Having access to the State Department materials would have been very helpful to me in trying to reconstruct with whom I spoke and met, when, and what was said,” he said. 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