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As it happenedended1569628802

Trump's Ukraine envoy quits as president rages on Twitter over whistleblower revelations

Kurt Volker previously served as Nato ambassador

Andy Gregory
New York
,Clark Mindock
Friday 27 September 2019 05:59 BST
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Donald Trump cries 'witch hunt' after DNI whistleblower hearing

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.

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