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U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker resigned from his position Friday after his name appeared in the whistleblower complaint that precipitated the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry into President Trump, CBS News confirms, according to two sources familiar with his decision.

The complaint alleges that Volker went to Kiev in late July and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian political figures and "reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to 'navigate' the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy."

Three House committees have scheduled a deposition with Volker regarding the whistleblower complaint.

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Having heard “somewhere” — possibly from Mike Murphy, the veteran Republican strategist, interviewed earlier this week by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC — that one current senator had estimated 30 Republicans in that chamber would vote to convict Donald Trump if secret ballots were a feature of impeachment verdicts, former Sen. Jeff Flake raised this objection:

‘I heard someone say if there were a private vote there would be 30 Republican votes. That’s not true. There would be at least 35.’
Jeff Flake