Win win!

Schiff et al have explicitly said they will take non-compliance with the House's impeachment investigation as evidence of obstruction. https://t.co/HIlPORgQSx

— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) October 8, 2019

The New York Times reports that the decision to block Sondland’s testimony came less than an hour before he was scheduled to deliver congressional testimony. According to the Times, the Trump administration “appears to be making the calculation that it is better off risking the House’s ire than letting Mr. Sondland show up and set a precedent for cooperation with an inquiry they have strenuously argued is illegitimate.”

House Democrats, however, have vowed that any effort to block administration officials from testimony will be viewed as obstruction of justice and will be added to eventual articles of impeachment against the president.

Trump is playing the old game, where obstruction and delay = victory.  It's not going to work that way in the 2nd Circuit (where haste doesn't mean NYState wins, but does mean Trump can't win by delay), and it's not going to work that way in the House.

NPR was discussing the Sondland testimony and the text messages this morning, before they caught up with this news (they tape the show and replay hours of it at a time, so often it is out of date quickly).  That discussion will continue, but Sondland's excuses/explanations won't be part of it, and the House won't stop the inquiry to go to court to get tangled in appellate proceedings until November 2020.

Everything in the texts and testimony of others (mostly former Administration officials, at this point) will be construed against the silence of the muzzled employees.  And the obstruction of the investigation will be held against the Administration and, unlike Mueller's ten counts of obstruction he couldn't take to court (constrained by that OLC opinion), these will be played out in public, and very publicly understood.

Trump is playing the old game.  This game is on a different field, and with different rules.