Lev Parnas may just be one of the most important witnesses in the Donald Trump impeachment trial. He and his buddy Igor Fruman are associates of POTUS’ fixer and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. The three of them have been hanging aroundn in Ukraine together, and it appears, up to no good. The first two were arrested at the airport with one-way tickets out of the country, but the former New York mayor has not been indicted.
Parnas decided to help the House Intelligence Committee as a means to get his sentence reduced. He offered to turn over information to the committee chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). The representative has been point man for the impeachment hearings.
Apparently, part of their trios assignment was to get the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich fired. One night, she got a phone call — at 1:00 a.m. Ukraine time, saying that she needed to come home right away. Get on the next flight back to America. There were concerns about her safety.
The House Democrats released 60 pages of information from Parnas on the eve of the Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing. Apparently, there was substantial additional documents not yet available for reelase. That information revealed a dramatic turn in Giuliani’s attempt to pressure the Ukrainan president Volodymyr Zelensky to provide dirt on a key opponent of Trump in the 2020 presidential race, former vice president Joe Biden.
The House committee will pass that information on to the Senate as part of the case to remove Trump from office. The documents prove that Parnas was trying to get a meeting between Giuliani and Zelensky.
Parnas attorney Joseph Bondy, according to CNN carried the document personally to the committee this weekend. It included a “contents of an iPhone.
The document showed that Giuliani said:
‘[H]e was working “with the President’s knowledge and consent.” There are also text messages that show Parnas’ communications with members of Zelesnky’s aides where he pursued a meeting between Zelensky and Giuliani and provided negative information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.’
One document was a handwritten note on Ritz-Carlton note paper which Bondy indicated had been written by his client. It read:
‘[G]et Zalensky (sic) to Annonce (sic) that the Biden case will Be Investigated.’
Another text message indicated that Yovanovitch’s movement were being tracked. Representative Val Demings (D-FL) on both the House Intelligence and the Judiciary committees told CNN:
‘To what extent we can get through it before the Senate trial remains to be seen.’
When the records were released by Schiff, Bondy tweeted:
‘HPSCI has just transmitted evidence from Lev Parnas to the Judiciary Committee, which it deemed relevant to @POTUS’ impeachment inquiry. Mr. Parnas remains committed to testifying as to all the actions he took in Ukraine on behalf of @realDonaldTrump.’
Parnas included a screenshot of one letter from Giuliani to Zelensky asking for a meeting last year. I in a text to one of Zelensky’s aides Serhiy Shefir. Giuliani wrote:
‘Along with many others, I am very hopeful that your election is a real turning point and allows the Ukraine to prosper and overcome some of the long-standing problems of the past. In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you on this upcoming Monday, May 13th or Tuesday, May 14th. I will need no more than a half-hour of your time and I will be accompanied by my colleague Victoria Toensing, a distinguished American attorney who is very familiar with this matter.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqdZraTiORk
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
