‘Never on the Trump train’ Kurt Volker will refuse to ‘take the fall’ for the president -- or Giuliani

According to reports from both CNN and the Washington Examiner, former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker is expected to be very forthcoming when he sits down behind closed doors with three congressional committees on Thursday, with the Examiner reporting he is "not willing to take the fall" for any malfeasance committed by the president or his attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

As CNN reports, Volker is a "longtime Republican foreign policy expert who was seen in the White House as not fully 'on the Trump train,'" adding, "Volker is now at the center of the impeachment inquiry examining allegations Trump deployed the machinery of state in a vendetta to target political rivals. Volker's testimony, analysts say, could be damaging to the President and his allies."

What should be worrying the White House are reports that Volker will not run interference for Trump or Giuliani.

The Examiner reports that Evelyn Farkas, a friend of Volker, who worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense for three years under Barack Obama said “He's not going to take a fall needlessly for people if it's not warranted.”

"He likely got involved in something sort of inadvertently, meaning he was asked to do one thing and it may have become bigger. But, he certainly would never have condoned anything that would subvert American democracy, or Ukrainian democracy, for that matter," Farkas added.

According to another associate, Frances Fragos Townsend, a trustee at the McCain Institute, where Volker works as executive director, "It's fair to say [Volker] resigned his position as envoy so he could assure that he could defend himself and cooperate with the committee."

Volker is now set to testify before the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs committees behind closed doors.

You can read more here from the Washington Examiner.