House Democrats took their first concrete steps in the impeachment investigation of Donald Trump as they issued subpoenas to Mike Pompeo.
The US Secretary of State, one of the President’s closest allies, has been told to hand over documents by House foreign affairs, intelligence and oversight committees.
The move came as Kurt Volker resigned from his post as special envoy to the Eastern European nation after it emerged he had connected Mr Trump’s person lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Ukrainian officials.
A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mr Volker told Mr Pompeo on Friday of his decision to leave the job.
Democrats launched impeachment investigations earlier this week following the revelation that Mr Trump had asked Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate political rivals on the phone.
A whistleblower first made the allegations that Mr Trump had abused his power during communications with a foreign leader.
It came to light that Mr Trump had asked Mr Zelenskiy to dig for potentially damaging material on Democratic rival Joe Biden and volunteered the assistance of both Mr Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.
A partial transcript of a call between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskiy was published by the White House this week, after which House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said impeachment proceedings were being started.
As well as demanding Mr Pompeo hand over information to with Ukraine, Democrats also scheduled depositions for five of his State Department officials over the next two weeks.
Ms Pelosi has raised concerns over the way in which Mr Trump has responded to the whistleblower allegations.
The President has branded those who spoke to the whistleblower as "close to a spy" and said it was “sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn't a Whistleblower at all".
Ms Pelosi responded: "I'm concerned about some of the president's comments about the whistleblower."
The State Department had no immediate comment on Mr Volker's resignation and has said only that he put Mr Giuliani in touch with an aide to Mr Zelenskiy.
