Trump's Ukraine envoy quits as president rages on Twitter over whistleblower revelations
Kurt Volker previously served as Nato ambassador
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Donald Trump‘s envoy to Ukraine has reportedly resigned after being named in the whistleblower complaint that has rocked the administration.
Multiple media sources said Kurt Volker, the president’s special representative for Ukraine, resigned on Friday.
A whistleblower complaint from within the intelligence community, released publicly on Thursday, described Mr Volker as trying to “contain the damage” from efforts by Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to press Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
It said: “On 26 July, a day after the call, special representative for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker visited Kyiv and met with president Zelenskyy and a variety of Ukrainian political figures. Ambassador Volker was accompanied in his meetings by US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
“Based on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me by various US officials, ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to “navigate” the demands that the president had made of Mr Zelenskyy.”
Mr Volker, who had served in the position on a part-time, unpaid basis since 2017, had sought to help Ukraine’s government resolve its confrontation with Russia-sponsored separatists.
Meanwhile on Friday, Mr Trump unleashed a stream of furious outbursts over the whistbleblower revelations, just days after House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry that some believe could yield results as soon as October.
Ms Pelosi joined others in voicing concern over the president’s hints that the whistleblower should be executed for exposing his or her attempt to pressure the Ukrainian president into investigating a major rival in the 2020 election.
One of the whistleblower’s key complaints that the transcript of Mr Trump’s Ukrainian call was moved to a classified location by White House staff appears to have been vindicated by an insider, according to CNN. Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is central to the allegations, has further implicated the state department in the scandal, presenting Fox News with text messages that he claims prove his meeting with an aide of Mr Zelensky was ordered by officials in Mike Pompeo’s department, not by Mr Trump.
We're not going to link to them here, but Donald Trump, Jr is busy today spreading conspiracies about the whistleblower complaint — including one from an unnamed ex-CIA official who have said it appears that the document was written by a professor.
Putting aside that "CIA employees can't write well" shade, it is worth noting that the inspector general — who was appointed by Donald Trump — has deemed the report "credible".
A Donald Trump, Jr, retweet.
A Donald Trump, Jr, retweet.
For a bit of levity, we want to point out that Politico yesterday took some great journalistic risk yesterday in publishing the following headline (since modified): "Welcome to F**knutsville".
The term has caught on, leading to a spike in Google searches, as America adapts to another vocabulary word that has been added to the impeachment lexicon.
If you're thinking things seem sort of quiet today after the storm, that's because Congress is taking off for two weeks of recess.
Great timing! Here's a snapshot of some congressmen loading up for a road trip together:
Rudy Giuliani here, taking issue with the writing in the whistleblower report.
Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who has pushed back on impeachment so far, has changed her mind.
Ms Gabbard, who represents a district in Hawaii, made the announcement on Friday.
BREAKING: The House Committee on Foreign Affairs has subpoenaed secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents related to Donald Trump's interactions with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The subpoena demands Mr Pompeo's cooperation by early October, and signals the committee's intention to grill at least five individuals connected to the president.
Those individuals include ambassador Kurt Volker — who apparently helped set up a meeting between Ukrainian officials and Mr Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani — and Marie Yovanovitch, who served as US ambassador to Ukraine before Mr Trump removed her from that role.
Depositions are set to take place between 2 October and 10 October, while most of Congress is away on recess.
Here is our report on the latest subpoenas out of the House:
If you've missed this, it is worth taking a look at.
Some tumult at the BBC over a member of their staff calling Donald Trump a racist. The issue has become a high point of contention.
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