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.
A new Hill Harris-X poll shows some bad news for Donald Trump, with a rising number of Americans indicating they support the impeachment proceedings he now faces.
The poll was conducted between 26 - 27 September, and shows a jump in support of 12 per cent — totaling 47 per cent support.
That's somewhat in line with other polls on the issue, though perhaps high in the field. For Democrats, a big part of the impeachment process will be making the case to Americans that the president's actions are truly egregious.
Donald Trump clearly does not plan on going down without a fight.
Just a bit earlier today, the president posted this video, showing that he wants to keep the fight going between himself and Joe Biden.
Donald Trump is due to speak shortly at the White House for the Hispanic Heritage Month Reception. The president is set to give his remarks at 6.30pm ET (11.10pm UK time), and you can watch them live here.
Hi this is Andrew Buncombe in Seattle, picking up our live coverage of the political drama gripping the nation
"The Trump campaign has tried to turn the whistleblower story round to Joe Biden and his son this week. Whether that's fair or not really isn't the point", Michael Arceneaux writes. Read his full piece here:
The House of Representatives committee will hear closed-door testimony from the intelligence community's inspector general on October 4, a congressional official said on Friday.
The hearing before the House intelligence committee relates to the whistleblower report alleging Mr Trump abused his office in attempting to solicit Ukraine's interference in the 2020 election, according to Reuters
Hi this is Andrew Buncombe in Seattle, picking up our live coverage of the political drama gripping the nation
This is our profile of Trump's personal lawyer - How Rudy Giuliani became Trump's conspiratorial Ukraine fixer: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-who-trump-past-ukraine-whistleblower-call-911-crowdstrike-a9123981.html
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has reported that Mr Giuliani has abruptly cancelled his scheduled paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia next week
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