Gordon Sondland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gordon Sondland
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| 20th United States Ambassador to the European Union | |
| In office July 9, 2018 – February 7, 2020 |
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| President | Donald Trump |
| Preceded by | Anthony L. Gardner |
| Succeeded by | Ronald Gidwitz (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Gordon David Sondland
July 16, 1957 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Katherine Durant (divorced in 2021) |
| Education | University of Washington |
Gordon David Sondland (born July 16, 1957) is an American businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels. Sondland is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020. In November 2019, he testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. After refusing to resign, Sondland was fired by Trump on February 7, 2020, two days after the conclusion of Trump's impeachment trial.
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Early life
Sondland was born to a Jewish family in Seattle, Washington, the son of Frieda (Piepsch) and Gunther Sondland. His mother fled Germany before the Second World War to Uruguay, where after the war she reunited with his father, who had served in the French Foreign Legion. In 1953, the Sondlands relocated to Seattle where they opened a dry-cleaning business. Sondland has a sister 18 years his senior. He attended the University of Washington but dropped out and became a commercial real estate salesman.
Career
In 1985, Sondland raised $7.8 million from friends and his wealthy brother-in-law and purchased the Roosevelt Hotel, a bankrupt Seattle hotel.
Sondland's company, Provenance Hotels, owns and manages hotels throughout the United States, including the Hotel Max and Hotel Theodore in Seattle, Washington; Hotel Murano in Tacoma, Washington; Hotel deLuxe, Hotel Lucia, Sentinel Hotel, Dossier, and Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon; The Hotel Preston in Nashville, Tennessee; and Old No. 77 Hotel and Chandlery in New Orleans, Louisiana. The hotels are now owned and operated by Pyramid Global Hospitality.
In 1998, Sondland purchased and redeveloped four hotels in Seattle, Portland, and Denver including Seattle's Alexis Hotel in partnership with Bill Kimpton. Sondland also is a principal in Seattle's Paramount Hotel. Through Provenance Hotels, Sondland is developing hotel projects throughout the US, including in Seattle, Hermosa Beach, and Los Angeles. Provenance Hotels specializes in adaptations of old buildings such as with the Hotel Murano in Tacoma, Washington, which used to be a conference Sheraton, but now includes glass art by 46 artists including Seattle's Dale Chihuly. Provenance is also known for designing or remodeling each hotel around themes that contain elements that relate to a location's history, art, culture, and local businesses.
In 2013, Sondland and Provenance completed a renovation of Portland's historic Governor Hotel, renaming it Sentinel. In December 2015, Sondland and Provenance announced the establishment of the company's first real estate investment fund, Provenance Hotel Partners Fund I. The $525 million fund was created specifically for hotel real estate investment and, at the time of its announcement, was the fourth largest fund ever launched in the state of Oregon.
Following his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union by President Trump, Sondland's name was removed from the Provenance Hotels' website, as required by U.S. ethics rules, and replaced with that of his wife, who was then listed as the chairman.
Political involvement
Sondland was a member of the transition team for Oregon Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski's administration and was appointed by Kulongoski to serve on the board of the Governor's Office of Film & Television. He was appointed the commission's chair in 2002 and served in that capacity until 2015. During his tenure on the film board, Sondland was instrumental in bringing the production of such television series as Leverage, The Librarians, and Grimm to Oregon and presided over the state securing the production of feature-length films such as Wild starring Reese Witherspoon, Thumbsucker starring Tilda Swinton, and The Ring Two starring Naomi Watts. At the 2015 Oregon Film Annual Governor's Awards, Sondland received the "Achievement in Film Service Award" for his role in growing Oregon's film industry.
Sondland also served as Oregon liaison to the White House. As an advisor to Kulongoski, Sondland suggested appointing Ted Wheeler as state treasurer, which Kulongoski did in 2010. In 2007, President George W. Bush appointed Sondland as a member of the Commission on White House Fellows. Sondland collaborated with President Bush and Jay Leno on an annual charitable auction of an autographed vehicle, with proceeds benefitting the Fisher House Foundation and the George W. Bush Foundation's Military Service Initiative. He was a bundler for Mitt Romney's 2012 Presidential campaign, and in 2012, Sondland was selected to serve as a member of Mitt Romney's presidential transition team.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Sondland initially supported Donald Trump, but cancelled a fundraiser after Trump's attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan. At the time, a spokesperson for Sondland said that Trump's "positions do not align with [Sondland's] personal beliefs and values." In April 2017, it was revealed that Sondland's $1 million donation to the Donald Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee was made public through the campaign contribution disclosure process. His contribution was made through four LLCs: BV-2 LLC, Dunson Cornerstone LLC, Buena Vista Investments LLC, and Dunson Investments LLC.
In 2024, Sondland announced in an appearance on MSNBC that he viewed the Biden-Harris administration as more of a threat to democracy than the January 6 events, and was endorsing Trump's candidacy in the 2024 election.
United States ambassador to the European Union
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In March 2018, President Trump selected Sondland to be the next United States ambassador to the European Union, a position which had been vacant since January 2016. Sondland's nomination received bipartisan support and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on June 28, 2018.
As ambassador, Sondland said that strengthening US-EU trade relations was a top priority. He supported using a strong US-EU economic partnership to counter what he called "economic aggression and unfair trade practices" from China. In pursuit of this end, Sondland promoted the idea of giving European governments access to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to allow them to better screen investors.
Sondland worked on data protection rules regarding U.S. compliance with the EU-US privacy shield. He also pledged to work with the EU to address global security threats. He was the Trump Administration's lead in talks with EU member countries on the U.S.'s decertification and withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal. Sondland repeatedly criticized EU member countries' creation of a "special purpose vehicle" (SPV) to bypass reimposed U.S. sanctions on Iran, calling the SPV a "paper tiger."
Sondland was a vocal opponent of the construction of Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport gas across the Baltic Sea to the EU. He argued that the pipeline would leave the EU dependent upon Russia for its energy needs and increase Russia's leverage on key U.S. allies in NATO. Sondland argued that "Putin uses energy as a political weapon. The EU should not rely on a bare-chested version of the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort as a supplier, even if his gas is a bit cheaper." Concerning Germany, he said, “It’s very frustrating, because Germany is only thinking in terms of its own parochial needs and ignoring those of the U.S. - one of its closest friends and allies - and of the other 27 Member States.” He emphasized that the EU and U.S. shared common legal and political values that could sort out any issues.
The Washington Post wrote that Sondland gained a reputation for "being indiscreet" and that officials "chastised [him] for using his personal phone for state business." He habitually traveled to Romania, Israel and other countries without coordinating his meetings with other officials. It was noted that he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in Washington. A former White House official commented, “He always seemed to be in D.C. People would say, ‘Does he spend any time in Brussels?’ ” The Post wrote, "Sondland’s approach to the job was seen more as a source of irritation than trouble until May [2019], when he moved to stake his claim to the U.S.-Ukraine relationship."
Philanthropy
Sondland founded the Gordon Sondland and Katherine J. Durant Foundation in 1999, which was established to "help families and boost communities"; it has given money to various non-profit organisations including $1,000,000 to the Portland Art Museum to endow permanent access for children under the age of eighteen. The Foundation helped establish a Distinguished Chair in Spine for pediatric orthopedic spine research at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in 2012. In 2014, the Foundation gave a $1,000,000 endowment to Oregon Health & Science University to establish the Sondland-Durant Distinguished Research Conference, a cancer research summit to begin in 2016. In 2017, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Duke University was created with the support of the Foundation.
The 2012 HillelFest Fundraising event at the University of Washington honored Sondland's sister and brother-in-law Lucy and Herb Pruzan for their five decades of leadership and dedication to Hillel. As part of this celebration, Sondland and his wife, Katy Durant, gave an endowment gift which created the Pruzan Fellow in honor of Herb and Lucy. Each spring at Hillel's Annual Meeting, a Pruzan Fellow is designated from among the emerging undergraduate leaders at Hillel UW. The intent is for the Pruzan Fellow to become a key leader, role model and driving force behind the undergraduate student programming at Hillel UW.
Pursuant to U.S. Office of Government Ethics regulations prohibiting executive branch employees from retaining certain financial interests, Sondland resigned from the Gordon D. Sondland and Katherine J. Durant Foundation immediately following his confirmation. In November 2019, the Portland Business Journal noted that following Sondland's appointment as Ambassador in 2018, the foundation modified its website by removing a biography tab for Sondland and adding two new ones for the couple's children.
In March 2023, Sondland participated as presenting underwriter for the traveling Auschwitz Exhibition at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation. At its opening reception on March 23, 2023, Sondland spoke about his support of the exhibit, and his parents, Frieda (Piepsch) and Gunther Sondland, who survived the Holocaust.
Writing
In 2022, Sondland published a book with Bombardier Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, entitled The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World. The New York Times called it "one of the most intriguing memoirs of the Trump era."
Personal life
On September 3, 1994, Sondland married Katherine Durant, the founder and managing partner of Atlas/RTG, a holding company with a portfolio of shopping centers throughout Oregon. Until 2016, Durant was the Chairperson of the Oregon Investment Council, the body that oversees the over $85 billion Public Employees Retirement System Fund. They have two children, Max and Lucy.
..... The accusations described instances of forcible kissing and retaliation in the form of withdrawn investments. Sondland denied the allegations in a statement, saying they were "concocted" and "coordinated for political purposes", and his spokesperson argued in a response on Sondland's website that Vogel's ownership of Portland Monthly, one of the outlets that broke the story, constituted an "outlandish conflict of interest." In a letter to ProPublica, one of Sondland's lawyers, James McDermott, suggested that the allegations and the impeachment inquiry were connected. He accused Portland Monthly and ProPublica of trying to “affect Ambassador Sondland’s credibility as a fact witness in the pending impeachment inquiry” and also suggested the news organizations were guilty of “veiled witness tampering.”
Sondland and Durant divorced in 2021; the General Judgment of Dissolution was entered in Multnomah County, case number 21DR16982 and signed by Judge Francis G. Troy, II on November 15, 2021. The terms of their agreement were not entered in the court record, citing the public nature of each party's business and political involvements. Their estate in southwest Portland, formerly owned by Durant and quitclaimed deeded on October 15, 2021 to an LLC controlled by Sondland, sold for $4.33 million in July 2022.
