UPDATE 2-Three takeaways from Sondland impeachment testimony: 'Everyone was in the loop'

A U.S. diplomat provided some of the most significant testimony to date in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that President Donald Trump expressly ordered him to help pressure Ukraine into investigating a Trump political rival. Senior officials in the U.S. government knew of the effort, he said. Here are three takeaways from the testimony of Gordon Sondland, a Republican donor who was appointed to be the U.S. ambassador to the European Union:

ACTING ON TRUMP'S ORDERS

Unlike other witnesses who have testified, Sondland communicated directly with Trump as he pressured Ukraine to undertake investigations that could boost the president's November 2020 re-election prospects.

Sondland said Trump did not tell him specifically what he wanted Kiev to investigate but told him to work with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who had no official U.S. government role. Sondland said Giuliani pressed Ukraine to investigate Burisma, a natural gas company on which Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, served as a director. Giuliani also wanted Ukraine to investigate a discredited conspiracy theory that Kiev, not Moscow, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Sondland said he did not realize until later that Giuliani's request to investigate Burisma was meant to target Joe Biden.

QUID PRO QUO

Sondland said the White House resisted setting up a phone call between Trump and Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and refused to arrange a coveted Oval Office meeting unless the Ukrainian leader publicly promised to undertake investigations that could help Trump politically. That contradicts Trump's main defense - that there was no explicit exchange of favors between the two countries.

"Was there a quid pro quo? ... the answer is yes," Sondland said. Sondland said on Wednesday that he gradually realized the White House was also withholding $391 million in security aid in order to pressure Kiev. He said he told a Zelenskiy aide in early September that Ukraine probably would not get the money until it took "some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks."

NOT A ROGUE OPERATION, HE SAYS

Other witnesses have said Sondland was part of a rogue operation designed to circumvent regular diplomatic channels. But Sondland said he told senior officials throughout the administration what he was doing.

"Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret," he said. Those named by Sondland included: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Mulvaney's senior adviser Rob Blair; Pompeo's counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl; Lisa Kenna, the State Department executive secretary; John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at the time; Bolton's deputy Fiona Hill; and Timothy Morrison, who replaced Hill.

"I'm not sure how someone could characterize something as an irregular channel when you're talking to the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, the chief of staff of the White House, the secretary of energy," Sondland said. In addition, Sondland said he told Vice President Mike Pence in September that the Ukraine aid appeared to be stalled because of the demand for investigations.

"The vice president nodded, he heard what I said, and that was pretty much it," he said. Sondland's testimony could be especially damaging for Trump loyalist Pompeo should he launch a run for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Kansas.

Sondland provided messages to lawmakers showing that the two communicated about his effort to get Ukraine to undertake the investigations sought by Trump. Pompeo appeared to approve of his efforts.

"You're doing great work; keep banging away," Pompeo told Sondland in early September, according to email correspondence cited in Sondland's testimony. Pompeo declined to comment on Wednesday.

Sondland's testimony could help Pompeo's potential political rivals in Kansas make the case that the secretary of state was more concerned with catering to Trump's whims than ensuring the integrity of U.S. foreign policy. Nonetheless, Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, and there are few indications the impeachment inquiry has eroded Trump's support among Republican voters.