Three women have accused Gordon Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union who is at the center of the presidential impeachment inquiry, of sexual misconduct and retaliation.

The three women say that Sondland made unwanted sexual contact with them in business settings, and on one occasion exposed himself, before he joined the U.S. State Department last year.

The three women who shared the allegations came forward by name. They are Portland Monthly Magazine owner Nicole Vogel, insurance executive Jana Solis, and Portland political consultant and nonprofit manager Natalie Sept. 

The women say that Sondland, who is married and has two kids, retaliated against them after they rejected his advances, according to a bombshell ProPublica and Portland Monthly report published Wednesday. 

However, Sondland has denied the allegations, slamming them as 'untrue claims' that he believes are 'coordinated for political purposes.'

Sondland is a successful business man who was the founder and CEO of the Provenance Hotels chain, which has 19 hotels across the country. He financially supported Trump after he became the Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential election.  

In March 2018 he was selected as the next US ambassador to the European Union and he was confirmed for the position in June 2018. 

Nicole Vogel decided to come forward with her account the day after Sondland gave his initial impeachment testimony on Capitol Hill last week, where he stood by President Trump but admitted there was quid pro quo between the White House and Ukraine. 

In 2003 Vogel, then 34, was raising money to launch Portland Monthly Magazine and met with Sondland, a prominent figure in Portland, twice for a potential investment, according to the report. 

The two got together for dinner in the spring of 2003 to discuss the investment and Sondland proposed walking to the nearly Hotel Lucia afterwards, which his hotel chain had acquired two years earlier. 

He showed her the art, introduced her to staff then allegedly made a move on her as she was looking at one of the hotel rooms. 

'I remember seeing my hand drop from the door handle. I turned around, and he’s standing right behind me, and he says, "Can I just have a hug first?"' she said. 

She tried to give him a friendly hug but recalled 'as I pulled back, he grabs my face and goes to kiss me.' 

Vogel said she deflected the kiss and tried to 'preserve his ego' by saying: 'Ooh Gordon, you’re a married man, and you’d just break my heart.'

During a second meeting the two got lunch and during a drive back to their offices Sondland alleged placed his hand on her mid-thigh and left it there for about 10 minutes. She said she placed her own hand on top of his to prevent it from moving any higher up as they rode in silence. 

'God, I would love to have told him to shove it. To have kneed him in the balls. But I didn’t do that. It was precarious,' she said. 

She said Sondland backed off from their investment talks just a few days before she was due to close her first round of financing by sending a cold email. 

'Nicole, After further reflection on this opportunity, I have come to the definite conclusion that this will be a "labor of love" investment, at least at the beginning. In checking further, I have determined that the Lucia cannot participate under your very creative structure.' 

Sondland's lawyer disputes that the cancelled investment was retaliation saying: 'A decision not to invest cannot fairly be characterized as retaliation.'

'Ambassador Sondland, in fact, conducted lengthy due diligence about Ms. Vogel’s investment proposal that included enlisting analyses from other regional publishers, before deciding not to invest,' attorney Jim McCarthy said in a statement shared with DailyMail.com. 

Though Vogel is the owner of the Portland Monthly magazine, she is not involved in editorial decisions and cooperated with the story as a source, the outlet noted. 

Jana Solis met Sondland in 2008 while working as a New York insurer for Marsh & McLennan creating risk management plans for restaurants and hotels. 

Solis alleges she met with Sondland twice to discuss her career and a potential new job with his company. 

They first met for lunch at the Pazzo Ristorante at the then Hotel Vintage Plaza in Portland. 

'He was flirting through the lunch, and ends up just saying, "OK, I’ve heard enough. You’re hired. Congratulations. You’re my new hotel chick,"' he said to her. 

On the way out Sondland allegedly slapped her behind and said: 'I look forward to working with you'. 

On a second occasion she went to Sondland's Portland West Hills home for a tour. He showed her the artwork, the rooms, then asked her to met him at the pool house. 

'I get out to the pool house, and he is now naked from the waist down,' Solis recalled.  

'He said something about, "I thought we could chat." And I said something, trying to keep his ego intact — not that he needed that, not that it wouldn't have been anyway — I said something like, "I can't have that conversation."'

Solis allegedly apologized for giving him the wrong impression and he allegedly replied, 'Well, I just thought we could have some fun, but you know, it's cool.' 

Sondland made yet another unwanted sexual advance on Solis a few months later as she was inspecting and holding staff training sessions at his hotel properties at the Roosevelt Hotel In Seattle (now called the Hotel Theodore) where Sondland has a penthouse. 

He invited her to his penthouse suite for drinks then allegedly started to forcibly kiss Solis. 

'The next thing I know, he’s all over me. He’s on top of me. He’s kissing me, shoving his tongue down my throat. And I’m trying to wiggle out from under him, and the next thing you know, I’m sort of rising up to get away from him, and I fall over the back of the couch,' she said. 

She allegedly told him: 'I really, really want to do business with you, but I’m not sure we can. I don’t know what your issues are, but I am telling you, I cannot make them mine.'

A few days later at work he screamed at her on the phone over insurance issues that were tangential to her job. 

'At the end of the day, it wasn't about insurance. He was pissed. He didn't get his way [with me], and he was making it about work,' she said.  

However, Sondland's lawyer denies that Sondland ever exposed himself to Solis or forcibly kissed her. He noted that Solis never reported any concerns in working with Sondland in business deals. 

Natalie Sept was working as a staffer for City Commissioner Nick Fish in 2010 when she allegedly had an unwanted interaction with Sondland.

She agreed to meet Sondland for dinner at El Gaucho in Portland, the same restaurant he took Vogel, to discuss her career and potential job opportunities he could offer her. She was 27 years younger than him at the time. 

Afterwards he invited her to continue the conversation at a bar. When she said she had to leave, Sondland paid the tab and repeatedly offered to walk her to her car, where he tried to forcibly kiss her.

'He keeps insisting, and I’m nervous and afraid and I don’t want to make a scene, so I say, "OK, fine."'

Once at the car he leaned in for a hug. 

'So I give him a quick hug and he holds onto my shoulders and looks at me and pushes himself into me and tries to kiss me,' she said. 

She pushed him off, got into her car and sped away from the scene. 

Sept says her relationship turned sour when she tried to send a professional follow-up email scheduling Sondland for a meeting with her boss. She said she never heard from him again about a potential state film commission job that they had discussed.

'What was most important was that I maintain professionalism. I didn’t want him to think I was frazzled by this,' she said. 

Sept denied this interaction saying through a lawyer: 'Ambassador Sondland did discuss Ms. Sept’s job prospects with her, but he denies any unwanted touching. He specifically denies attempting to kiss her, along with her claim that she pushed him away.'  

However, Sondland has denied the allegations. 

'In decades of my career in business and civic affairs, my conduct can be affirmed by hundreds of employees and colleagues with whom I have worked in countless circumstances,' he told DailyMail.com in a statement. 

'These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, coordinated for political purposes. They have no basis in fact, and I categorically deny them.

'There has never been mention of them in any form during the 10 to 16 years since they supposedly occurred, although such a complaint could easily have been aired through multiple channels. These false incidents are at odds with my character.'

Sondland's lawyer added: 'Notably, what each of these three women share in common is that they pursued Ambassador Sondland for financial and personal gain — an investment, a job, and insurance brokerage work — and he declined their proposals.' 

Sondland's name has come into the spotlight with Trump's impeachment inquiry. 

During the 2016 presidential campaign he wasn't an outspoken supporter of Trump and initially supported Jeb Bush's campaign. When Trump won the nominee ticket, Sondland donated a stunning $1million to his inaugural committee. 

Sondland had a lifelong dream of becoming a diplomat, a dream Trump was able to make a reality by nominating Sondland as ambassador to the EU in May 2018. 

Vogel said she was forced to come forward with her account of sexual misconduct after seeing Sondland testify before lawmakers. 

Sept echoed that sentiment saying: 'The fact that [Sondland] uses his power to terrorize people who he perceives as having less power is really disgusting. I want other women to feel comfortable to share their stories, and be believed.'