Gordon Sondland bought an ambassadorship – and a front-row seat to Trump impeachment

I used to know Gordon Sondland. Yeah, that Gordon Sondland, who finally got his story straight before the House Intelligence Committee, after some additional mulling, on Wednesday.

You really couldn’t miss Gordie. He was ubiquitous in the arts and political community of Portland, Oregon, where I lived for many years. He owned some of Portland’s most luxurious hotels.

“Transactional.” That’s a word you often hear in association with Gordie.

Ahem. Yeah, that’s an understatement. His friend, Len Bergstein, told NPR that “He was someone who wasn’t looking to bend the rules necessarily, but was trying to bend the narrative, trying to make sure that he, if he could tell his story in his way, he would win.”

And Gordie did win.

In one infamous episode, The Oregonian reported that Gordie vehemently opposed the building of a nice hotel at the Portland Convention Center because he didn’t get the contract. Keep in mind: He and his wife were Ayn Rand fans (they named their office building “The Galt”), but he apparently didn’t relish the free market when it didn’t work in his favor.

He caused such a stink that Portland Metro Regional Government President Tom Hughes gave him a $1.94 million parcel of land right by the convention center just to go away.

Oddly, as part of the deal, Gordie asked Metro to put out a statement saying he and his wife were “pillars of the community.” Metro did just that.

Pillars.

One time, Gordie and I went to dinner. At dinner, Gordie professed his support for Patrick J. Buchanan in the upcoming 1992 presidential election. I vividly recall being stunned. Pat Buchanan had obvious admiration for Hitler’s Germany. Gordie was the son of Holocaust survivors.

I called Gordie out on this at dinner. In 2000, even would-be Reform Party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump later tweeted that Buchanan was a “neo-Nazi.”

Later, I would hear smart people around town say that Gordie was someone to listen to. Even Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed Gordie to the Oregon Film and TV board, and also appointed his wife to the Oregon Investment Council, where she ultimately wound up as chair.

As it turns out, Gordie wasn’t even registered to vote in Oregon (he was legal resident of Seattle, Washington) but he had the ear of many Oregonians. Why?

Well, it didn’t hurt that Gordie had made a ton of money on his hotels, and he was slinging it all over the place, particularly in Portland’s arts community.

I also knew that Gordie was a big donor in Oregon and national GOP circles. I recall that he held a fundraiser for Vice President Dick Cheney, and for the later Bushes. He also raised money for Mitt Romney and John McCain, who Gordie knew had been slandered by Trump.

Gordie’s ambition was an ambassadorship. After all, four people from Portland got them for being big GOP donors – but not anywhere near the level of European Union ambassador.

Gordie got richer, according to The Oregonian.

After initially supporting Jeb Bush in 2016, Gordie held a fundraiser for Trump as part of his long campaign to become an ambassador. He also gave to many local Democrats. When Trump criticized the Khan family, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died in Iraq in 2004, Gordie and his business partner got cold feet and canceled.

After Trump won, Gordie reconsidered his moral position and used several of his blandly named LLCs to contribute $1 million to the inaugural committee. He didn’t want his lefty Portland pals to know.

After another year of wheedling, Gordie wound up as the United States Ambassador to the European Union. Now, if Gordie had been like his other GOP buds, he would have gotten a minor ambassadorship where he could have served quietly and then proceeded around Portland and Seattle as Ambassador Sondland.

When I heard that Gordie Sondland, a University of Washington college dropout, got that job, I was floored. His predecessor, Anthony L. Gardner, had a somewhat more impressive resume: BA in Government from Harvard University, an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, a JD from Columbia Law School and a Masters in Finance from London Business School. He was also fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and German.

This is where we are now, I thought. The Trump Administration is filled with Gordies.

Portland society is now scrambling. I’m sure none of them now barely knew the guy. Same thing with the president who now says, “I hardly know the gentleman” – the gentleman who also had his private phone number he called from his unsecured phone.

Portland just took his money, like Trump.

My late brother in law used to say that Gordie was “a real beauty.”

Yep, along with his boss, another real beauty who is in over his head.