Lev Parnas, an indicted Republican fundraiser, has dropped a
bombshell into the impeachment hearing in the form of mountains of notes, text
messages, voicemails, pictures, and other documents relating to Rudy Giuliani’s
shadow diplomacy in Ukraine. Parnas is naming
names from President Trump on down as he spills the beans on what happened
behind the scenes as the Trump Adminstration allegedly pushed President Zelensky
to announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden. The big question is
whether Parnas can be trusted.
The short answer is no. Parnas lacks credibility and has
plenty of incentive to bend the truth in order to ingratiate himself to
Congress and bargain his way out his own legal troubles. The longer answer is
that what Parnas lacks in credibility, he makes up for in documentation.
For those who haven’t been following the emerging situation,
Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested
last October at Dulles International Airport just prior to leaving the
country on one-way tickets. The pair were charged with attempting to funnel
money from foreign governments to American elected officials. Both men were
associates of Rudy Giuliani and were involved in Giuliani’s Ukrainian fishing expeditions
for dirt on Joe Biden. Though both men were US citizens, Parnas was born in
Ukraine and Fruman was born in Belorus, both former republics of the Soviet
Union.
In early November, Parnas
agreed to cooperate with the House impeachment probe. It was only this week,
however, that a trove of documents from Parnas was made public by House
investigators after receiving judicial approval. The document releases can be
viewed here.
Since Parnas himself is not a credible character, the documents
that he has presented are more important than his own testimony, which so far
has not been under oath. Some of the documents are more credible than others.
For example, Parnas’ handwritten notes are questionable but a letter from
Giuliani to Zelensky is more compelling.
The Giuliani
letter is important in that it undercuts one of President Trump’s strongest
defenses, namely that he was acting in the national interest. In the letter,
Giuliani specifically claims that he represents Trump “as a private citizen,
not as President of the United States.”
Also compelling are the series of text messages between
Parnas and Robert Hyde, another Republican donor who is currently running for
Congress in Connecticut. The pair’s now-famous
message exchange indicated that US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch
was under their surveillance to the extent that they knew not only her location
but whether her phone and computer were on. If the messages are genuine, it is
very difficult to explain why they were keeping tabs on Yovanovitch for any
reason that is not either creepy or sinister. If the messages are not genuine,
it is difficult to explain why they were constructed to include Hyde, an unknown.
Interesting but not as damaging is Parnas’ undated note on a
Ritz-Carlton-Vienna pad. One item on the to-do list reads, “Get Zalensky [sic]
to announce that the Biden case will be investigated.” The note supports
previous testimony that Trump’s goal in withholding the Ukrainian aid money was
to force the announcement, but without context such as a date, it is impossible
to know if it is genuine or was created later.
While there may be some doubt about the note’s legitimacy,
there is no doubt that Parnas himself is the real deal. Among the releases are text
messages between Parnas and Giuliani, including one in which Giuliani told
Parnas that he needed to get then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and
Prosecutor General Lutsenko “on the record about the ambassador and Biden” and
asked, “Can you make it happen?”
Parnas also appears in photographs with a veritable Who’s
Who of Republican and Trump Administration officials including Giuliani,
Kellyanne Conway, Mike Pence, and numerous poses with President Trump. Most of
these officials deny knowing Parnas and say that they don’t recall taking the
photos.
The piece de resistance, however, is a copy of an email
from Jay Sekulow in which the president’s personal attorney writes to John Dowd,
another lawyer who was also once an attorney for Trump, on the subject of “Lev
Parnas and Igor Fruman.” Sekulow told Dowd, “I have discussed the issue of
representation with the president. The president consents to allowing your representation
of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman [sic].” The obvious question here is why Donald
Trump is involved at all in the legal representation of two low-level flunkies.
Lev Parnas is a sketchy character and his claims should be
questioned and verified, but that does not mean that they are irrelevant. In
the end, Parnas is one more link in the chain of evidence against Donald Trump
along with the OMB
and Pentagon emails released under the Freedom of Information Act that
pointed to Trump as the source of the aid freeze, and the new GAO
assessment that the president violated the law in withholding the aid.
Parnas’ claims and evidence must be viewed within the context of other evidence
and testimony to help complete the picture of what happened.
The revelations of the past few weeks both underscore the
mistake Democrats made in rushing the impeachment vote and the fortunate decision
of Speaker Pelosi in delaying the referral of the articles to the Senate. Without
the delay, the new information would still be coming out but the Senate might
already have dismissed the case. On the other hand, if Democrats had taken
their time, they could have transmitted a more complete case to the Senate,
where many Republicans seem determined to ignore any new information that has
come out since December 18.
As the impeachment trial gets underway in the Senate, the
one thing that seems is clear is that the more information that comes out, the
worse things look for Donald Trump. While it is still extremely unlikely that
Senate Republicans will vote for removal, Congress and the media will keep
shining lights on the actions of Trump and his agents in Ukraine. If the
president survives impeachment, the tales of his abuses of power and corruption
may mean that his stay in the White House is only prolonged by a few months.
Originally published on The Resurgent
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