Impeachment scandal rolls on in Washington as Trump rages at whistleblower

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.