The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, intends to tell Congress this week that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony.

Sondland plans to tell lawmakers he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth at that moment. “It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth,” said the person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.
...

The person familiar with Sondland’s testimony said the ambassador “believed Trump at the time and on that basis passed along assurances” that Trump was not withholding military aid for political purposes.

But Sondland’s testimony will raise the possibility that Trump wasn’t truthful in his denial of a quid pro quo as well as an alternative scenario in which the president’s interest in the scheme soured at a time when his administration faced mounting scrutiny over why it was withholding about $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine and delaying a leader-level visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"Whether he’s deciding it’s getting too hot to handle and he backs off whatever his position really was a month earlier, I don’t know,” the person said of Sondland’s understanding.
...

Sondland is expected to say that for months before the Sept. 9 message, he worked at the direction of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, to secure what he would call in another text message the “deliverable” sought by Trump: a public statement from Ukraine that it would investigate corruption, including mentioning Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, by name. In exchange for the statement, the president would grant Ukraine’s new president a coveted White House audience.

“It was a quid pro quo, but not a corrupt one,” the person familiar with Sondland’s testimony said.

...

The three (Sondland, Volker, Perry) returned to Washington (from Zelensky’s inauguration in May)
intent on pressing Trump to meet quickly with Zelensky. But instead of receiving a positive reception, the idea was met with a “buzz saw” in the Oval Office, the person said. Trump was disgruntled about Ukraine, blaming opponents in the country for attempting to undermine his 2016 victory.

“Trump was saying Ukraine ‘tried to do me in,’ ” the person said. The three surmised that Giuliani had filled Trump’s head with a number of baseless conspiracy theories, including that a hacked server belonging to the Democratic National Committee was spirited away to Ukraine. Perry, Sondland and Volker each took a turn trying to move Trump to no avail. The president ended the meeting saying: “If you want to do something you have to talk to Rudy.”

...

By Sept. 9, Sondland, however, had grown increasingly concerned, as military funding for Ukraine now appeared tied to the statement as well. The person said Sondland was never briefed about Biden being part of the issue and was not aware of it until the transcript of the phone call was released. “If he had known earlier, he never would have touched this.”