But what does he know?
Prystaiko spoke the day after the first public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee as part of the "impeachment inquiry," where two witnesses said they came to believe there had been such a link ‐ though only some time after Politico reported on August 28 that aid had been held up by the Trump administration.
One of the witnesses, Chargé d’affaires Bill Taylor, introduced new evidence that a staffer told him recently that he overheard Sondland speaking to President Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...the day after his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, discussing "investigations." The staffer also told Taylor that Sondland said that Trump was more interested in investigations than anything else.
As Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong noted, that new evidence ‐ which is fourth-hand hearsay, plus opinion ‐ added little new information, but was cited by Democrats and journalists as evidence that aid might have been linked to investigations Trump had asked the new Ukrainian government to pursue.
On Thursday, Prystaiko said that there had been no link in discussions at the time with Sondland, as Rooters reported.