Uh-oh

That thing Trump never heard about?  There's a second witness to it.

A second U.S. Embassy staffer in Kyiv overheard a key cellphone call between President Donald Trump and his ambassador to the European Union discussing the need for Ukrainian officials to pursue “investigations,” The Associated Press has learned.

[...]

[In his testimony before the House yesterday, ambassador William] Taylor said one of his staffers overhead the call while Sondland was in a restaurant the day after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that triggered the House impeachment inquiry.

[...]

The staffer Taylor testified about is David Holmes, the political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, according to an official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Holmes is scheduled to testify Friday before House investigators in a closed session.

[...]

The second diplomatic staffer also at the table was Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer based in Kyiv. A person briefed on what Jayanti overheard spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter currently under investigation.

[...]

The accounts of Holmes and Jayanti could tie Trump closer to alleged efforts to hold up military aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings.

Current and former U.S. officials say Sondland’s use of a cellphone in a public place in Ukraine to speak with anyone in the U.S. government back home about sensitive matters, let alone the president, would be a significant breach of communications security.

[...]

U.S. diplomats and other government employees are instructed not to use cellphones for sensitive official matters while traveling anywhere abroad but notably in countries known to be targeted for surveillance by intelligence agencies such as Russia, China and Israel.

Ukraine has long been among the countries of concern, particularly since a 2014 incident in which the U.S. accused Russian intelligence of eavesdropping on and then leaking a recording of a conversation between two senior U.S. officials in Kyiv that led to great embarrassment and strains between the U.S. and its European allies.

[...]

Jayanti is an attorney who joined the State Department in 2012 and was previously posted at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. She has been stationed since September 2018 at the embassy in Kyiv where she helps coordinate U.S. business interests with the former Soviet republic’s energy industry.

  AP

Sondland is going to have to admit it when he goes before the House Committee.

This also points up both Sondland and Trump's endangering of US national security by talking about the deal over unsecured media.  Do we imagine the Russians don't also know about that call?

I do wonder, however, why Holmes and Jayanti hadn't said anything to Taylor sooner.  I'm sure they'll be asked that question by Republicans when they're interrogated.