Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Volker resigns

Volker had connected Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Ukrainian officials to investigate former US vice president Joe Biden and his family over allegedly corrupt business dealings.

Washington: Kurt Volker, the US special envoy to Ukraine who found himself caught up in the whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump's dealings with the East European country, resigned on Friday, according to a US official.

Volker, a former NATO ambassador, told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday of his decision to leave the job.

It followed disclosures that Volker had connected Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Ukrainian officials to investigate former US vice president Joe Biden and his family over allegedly corrupt business dealings.

Giuliani has said that he was in frequent contact with Volker about his efforts.

The State Department had no immediate comment on the envoy's resignation and has said that Volker put Giuliani in touch with an aide to Ukraine's president.

Pompeo said on Thursday that as far as he knew, all State Department employees had acted appropriately in dealing with Ukraine.

Volker was brought into the Trump administration by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to serve as envoy for Ukraine.

He worked in a volunteer capacity and had retained his job as head of the John McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.

Arizona State's student newspaper was the first to report his resignation.