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    Wednesday, May 15, 2024

    Key Trump impeachment witness Gordon Sondland accused of sexual misconduct, retaliation

    Gordon Sondland, the Trump-appointed European Union ambassador at the center of the House impeachment inquiry, is facing accusations that he forcibly kissed and exposed himself in front of three women over a decade ago.

    In a shocking report published by ProPublica and Portland Monthly on Wednesday, the women alleged in specific detail how Sondland made unwanted sexual advances. All three alleged victims also say Sondland retaliated against them professionally after they rebuffed him.

    Sondland vehemently denied the accusations, calling them “concocted.”

    He also claimed at least one of the women, Nicole Vogel — the owner and publisher of Portland Monthly — has ulterior motives in accusing him of sexual misconduct.

    “It is distressing that this underhanded journalism was initiated by a source angry that I long ago declined to invest in her magazine, the same magazine now presenting its owner’s outlandish claims as if the reporting is somehow objective,” Sondland said in a statement.

    Vogel says she met Sondland in 2003 while trying to secure funding to launch her magazine.

    After dinner at a ritzy steakhouse in Portland, Ore., Vogel alleges Sondland took her across the street to show her a hotel he owns in the city.

    Once at the hotel, Vogel says Sondland suggested showing her a room. After shutting the room door behind her, Vogel says Sondland pounced on her.

    “As I pulled back, he grabs my face and goes to kiss me,” she said.

    Vogel says she deflected the kiss and they left the room shortly thereafter.

    Sondland had at first pledged to raise at least $25,000 for Vogel’s magazine, she said. But after the hotel room incident, he emailed her that he would only give her $10,000. He ended up not giving anything.

    Another woman, an insurance executive named Jana Solis, says she met Sondland in 2008 while pitching him to sign with her company.

    The pitch went well, but after lunch, Solis says Sondland slapped her “on the a — and said, ‘I look forward to working with you.’”

    Next, she was called to come to Sondland’s lavish Portland home to evaluate his private art collection.

    After touring the house, Solis says Sondland wanted to check out a few more pieces in his adjacent pool house. She said she needed to go to the bathroom and would meet him there.

    “I get out to the pool house, and he is now naked from the waist down,” Solis said. “He said something about, ‘I thought we could chat’ … I said something like, ‘I can’t have that conversation.’”

    She said she then apologized to Sondland, saying she was sorry if she gave the wrong impression. He drove her home afterward.

    Solis had one more encounter with Sondland a few months later at his hotel in Seattle, where he keeps a private penthouse apartment.

    She said he told her that she needed to see the penthouse to evaluate it for insurance purposes.

    “The next thing I know, he’s all over me,” she said. “He’s on top of me. He’s kissing me, shoving his tongue down my throat. And I’m trying to wiggle out from under him, and the next thing you know, I’m sort of rising up to get away from him, and I fall over the back of the couch.”

    She rebuffed him.

    “I’m like: ‘Gordon, I’m not sure what else to say. You know, I really, really want to do business with you, but I’m not sure we can,’” she said.

    She said a few days later Sondland called her, angry about her insurance representation, and she left the account.

    “At the end of the day, it wasn’t about insurance. He was p — — d he didn’t get his way,” she said.

    The third accuser is Natalie Sept, a campaign manager for a local politician in Portland.

    Sept, who’s 27 years Sondland’s junior, said her boss introduced her to Sondland during breakfast at a restaurant in Portland popular for politicos. Afterward, Sondland invited her for dinner to discuss a potential opportunity to join the board of an art museum in Portland.

    After dinner and drinks, she said Sondland walked her to her car.

    “So I give him a quick hug and he holds onto my shoulders and looks at me and pushes himself into me and tries to kiss me,” she said.

    She said she dodged the kiss, drove off and never spoke to Sondland again. Sondland never made good on the offer of a potential museum board spot.

    The disturbing allegations against Sondland come on the heels of his explosive public testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

    Sondland, who donated $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee and was handpicked to serve as EU ambassador, testified Trump ordered a quid pro quo for Ukraine to launch investigations of Democrats before the 2020 election. The EU ambassador also acknowledged he played a major role in facilitating the plot.

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