Lev Parnas has gone public, and he’s ready to take the Trump White House down.
In a series of interviews, Parnas — an associate of U. S. President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — laid bare his actions to extort politically motivated investigations against the U.S. president’s opponents from the Ukrainian government.
Those efforts ultimately led the U. S. House of Representatives to impeach Trump, a saga that is ongoing in Washington, D. C. Parnas and another associate, Igor Fruman, were arrested in October and are facing trial for campaign finance violations. Parnas has agreed to cooperate in the impeachment probe.
On. Jan 15, the House handed the impeachment proceedings over to the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority. Trump could stand trial as early as next week.
In a scandal clouded by denials and bald-faced politicking, Parnas’ unexpected candor has given definitive answers to many questions: Trump knew about efforts to strongarm Kyiv, as did other administration officials and top Republicans. And contrary to Trump’s claims, these actions were never motivated by concerns about corruption in Ukraine.
“It was all about 2020, to make sure (Trump) had another four years,” Parnas told CNN.
The Parnas interviews cap off a week studded with groundbreaking revelations. Earlier, the House released a series of documents provided by Parnas: text messages, scans of written notes, photographs and other documents.
Taken together, the Parnas interviews and documents reveal the Trump administration willing to sacrifice Ukraine and its security in order to defeat the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.
They also show the degree to which corruption emanating from the Oval Office penetrated the broader administration and the top echelons of the Republican Party.
Trump knew
Parnas’ decision to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry and go public with what he knows is a stunning turnaround for the Ukraine-born American businessman.
Parnas was, by all accounts, a true believer in Trump’s cause.
“I loved him,” he told CNN, adding that when investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigations raided his home, they described what they found inside as a “shrine” to the U.S. president.
“I had pictures all over. I idolized him. I thought he was the savior,” Parnas told the U.S. news network.
Now, Parnas says that has changed.
Rachel Maddow visits “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” at Rockefeller Center on March 15, 2017 in New York City. (AFP)
Asked by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow what he thinks is the biggest inaccuracy that he can clear up, Parnas was unequivocal:
“That the president didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all of my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president.”
He further stressed that he would not have been able to meet with high-level officials in Ukraine had he and Giuliani not been representing Trump.
“They have no reason to speak to me,” he said. “Why would President (Volodymyr) Zelensky’s inner circle or (Interior) Minister (Arsen) Avakov or all these people or (former) President (Petro) Poroshenko meet with me?
“They were told to meet with me, and that’s the secret that (Trump’s circle is) trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work.”
Parnas also pushed back against Trump’s claim to not know him or Fruman.
“He lied,” Parnas said.
Revelations
That Trump knew about Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman’s efforts was hardly the most shocking information from the interviews.
Parnas also revealed the leverage the Trump administration was prepared to use in order to get Kyiv to open an investigation into former U. S. Vice President Joseph Biden, seen as Trump’s most likely Democratic challenger in the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks to the press outside the grand ballroom as he arrives for a New Year’s celebration at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida on Dec. 31, 2019. (AFP)
The House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump after an unnamed government official submitted a whistleblower complaint about the U.S. president’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky. The whistleblower alleged that Trump used the call to try to make Ukraine help him get reelected. An official memorandum recreating the call later confirmed this.
Trump subsequently blocked $391.5 million of military aid to Ukraine in a move widely perceived as an act of political pressure. The aid was ultimately released in September.
On Jan. 16, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, ruled that Trump broke the law by withholding aid, prompting U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel (Democrat-New York) to say that Trump “broke the law when he held up critical security assistance to Ukraine, which is under attack by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
Parnas said Trump put all aid on the chopping block. “It wasn’t just military aid. It was all aid,” Parnas told Maddow. He said Giuliani told him, after meeting with Trump, to inform Serhiy Shefir, a top aide to Zelensky, that Washington would cut all aid unless the Ukrainian government announced an investigation into Biden.
Giuliani and right-wing media have made a slew of allegations against Biden. They claim that he forced Ukraine to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in order to protect his son, Hunter, from a corruption investigation. At the time, Hunter served on the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukrainian private energy company.
The elder Biden indeed called for Shokin’s firing, but was echoing the position of Ukrainian reformers, anti-corruption activists and the country’s international partners. There is no evidence that Biden engaged in corruption in Ukraine and there was never a corruption investigation into his son.
Parnas and Fruman met with Shefir in May, shortly before Zelensky’s inauguration and conveyed the message. “I was told to give it to him in a harsh way, not in a pleasant way,” Parnas told Maddow.
Parnas told CNN that Zelensky’s inner circle was worried at the time because Giuliani had said Zelensky was surrounded by “enemies” of the United States.
Pence, Bolton involved
After Zelensky took office, one of his administration’s priorities was to speak with Trump, the leader of one of Ukraine’s most important partners. But that proved to be a challenge.
Initially, the two leaders were scheduled to meet in Poland on Sept. 1, on the sidelines of a ceremony commemorating World War II. Then, at the last moment, Trump cancelled his trip, saying he would stay home to monitor Hurricane Dorian, which was slated to make landfall in the southeastern U.S.
However, according to Parnas, the hurricane wasn’t the real reason for the cancellation. Rather, Trump was angry that Zelensky had not announced an investigation into Biden.
Parnas said he learned that this was the reason from Giuliani.
Trump sent Vice President Michael R. Pence to Poland in his stead. The vice president was supposed to tell Zelensky to announce the investigation, Parnas told Maddow.
Previously, the Washington Post reported that Trump had involved Pence in his efforts to pressure Ukraine: The U.S. president instructed Pence not to attend Zelensky’s inauguration in May and had him convey to Zelensky in Poland that military aid would remain suspended due to concerns about Kyiv’s anti-corruption efforts.
However, Pence did not know about Trump’s efforts to solicit dirt on Biden from the Ukrainian government, officials close to Pence told the Washington Post.
According to Parnas, that isn’t true. In fact, Pence’s trip to Zelensky’s inauguration was cancelled shortly after his conversation with Shefir, when Ukraine again failed to open an investigation into Biden, Parnas told CNN.
And the vice president knew why his inauguration trip was cancelled and was also tasked with getting Ukraine to open an investigation into Biden in Poland, he told Maddow.
“Everybody was in the loop,” Parnas told Maddow, later adding, “He couldn’t have not known.”
U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speak during a meeting in New York on Sept. 25, 2019 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. (AFP)
He also said that John Bolton, then U.S. national security advisor, was also likely aware of what was going on due to his involvement in the firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and his interactions with Giuliani. Bolton appears increasingly likely to testify in Trump’s impeachment, the Washington Post reported.
Yovanovitch was removed from her post as Washington’s emissary to Ukraine in May after a sustained smear campaign by Giuliani, Parnas and right-wing media. Text messages between Parnas and a Trump donor, Robert F. Hyde, released on Jan. 14 suggested that Hyde had conducted surveillance on Yovanovitch in Kyiv in March.
In his interview with Maddow, Parnas called Hyde’s texts “disturbing,” but suggested he was not surveilling her, and was simply inebriated or making it up.
“He’s drunk all the time,” Parnas said.
On Jan. 16, Ukraine’s National Police opened a criminal probe into potential surveillance of Yovanovitch.
Firtash deal
Parnas also copped to conducting outreach to Dmytro Firtash, a Vienna-based Ukrainian oligarch currently fighting extradition to the U.S. on bribery charges.
Firtash offered information to undermine the U.S. special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump and also offered to provide damaging information about Biden.
“In order for us to be able to receive information from Firtash, we had to promise Firtash something,” Parnas told Maddow.
That was getting his case closed in the U.S.
Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash stands in the courtroom prior to a public hearing at the Austrian Supreme Court in Vienna on June 25, 2019. (AFP)
At Giuliani’s behest, Parnas appears to have gotten Firtash to replace his lawyer with Joseph DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, two conservative lawyers known for their support of Trump. They, in turn, hired Parnas as a translator and paid him $200,000 dollars over four months, the Washington Post reported.
In August, the two lawyers met with U. S. Attorney General William P. Barr to plead Firtash’s case. They also secured a sworn affidavit from ex-Prosecutor General Shokin claiming that Biden had not only called for his firing, but had also tried to prevent Firtash from returning to Ukraine.
Shokin alleged that Firtash’s prosecution was politically motivated. Under Austrian law, that would prevent his extradition.
DiGenova, Toensing and Parnas never managed to get Firtash’s case closed: In October, Barr declined to take action. The oligarch is still fighting extradition.
Barr and Nunes
In his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump asked the Ukrainian president to “do us a favor” and investigate both Biden and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, according to a memorandum recreating the call.
He also asked Zelensky to speak with Giuliani and Attorney General Barr.
Democrats have accused Barr’s Justice Department of shielding Trump. The department declined to investigate Trump’s call with Zelensky — despite concerns that Trump’s request constituted corruption or violated campaign finance laws.
In his interview with Maddow, Parnas said that Barr was well aware of Giuliani’s efforts against Biden.
“Attorney General Barr was basically on the team,” he said. According to Parnas, Barr “wanted to get to the bottom of the Biden stuff,” but likely was not happy that Trump made this public in the call.
Parnas’ statements call into question the independence and integrity of the Justice Department. A spokesperson for the department denied his claims.
Parnas also said that Devin Nunes, a Republican congressman from California, “wanted to help out” with the Ukraine investigation and was aware of what Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman were working on.
Nunes is the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committe, making him one of the senior investigators in the impeachment inquiry.
Parnas was surprised to see Nunes and his aide, Derek Harvey, seated in the impeachment hearing, he said, because of their conflict of interest.
Parnas said he set up Skype interviews for Harvey with Nazar Kholodnytskyi, Ukraine’s special anti-corruption prosecutor, whom Yovanovitch criticized, and Kostiantyn Kulik, a prosecutor who claimed to have information on Biden.
“I texted my attorney and said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,” Parnas told Maddow. “Because they were involved in getting all this stuff (on) Biden.”
