Part One of the Maddow interview with Lev Parnas was yesterday. Part Two should have some additional bombshells (Thursday MSNBC 9pm ET). The interview came just after Lev Parnas dropped hundreds of pages of documents on Congress.
Just as the Senate trial of IMPOTUS* begins, it is now incumbent on them to examine new evidence as well as related witnesses. Even if the GOP abbreviates the proceedings and acquits Trump, there are enough threads to perhaps lead to a second impeachment proceeding in a Trump second term.
Lev Parnas, the Rudy Giuliani associate caught in the middle of President Donald Trump’s impeachment, said on Wednesday that the president was fully aware of his actions in Ukraine, and leveled a string of potentially damaging accusations against the president’s closest allies, including Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr and the House Intelligence Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes.
“President Trump knew exactly what was going on,” Parnas, who was indicted over an alleged campaign finance scheme in October, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow when asked to correct the biggest inaccuracy about his dealings with the president. “He was aware of all of my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president.”
Speaking in an interview aired on Wednesday night, Parnas said Trump and Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, directed him to urge Ukrainian officials to publicly open an investigation into a Trump Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Parnas asserted that the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine last spring was entirely motivated by her interference in their efforts to start a Biden investigation. And he even apologized to her for his conduct.
Parnas added that Pence, Barr and former national security adviser John Bolton were all aware of or involved in parts of the scheme.
www.politico.com/...
- “Why would President Zelensky’s inner circle, Minister Avakov, or President Poroshenko meet with me? Who am I? They were told to meet with me. That's the secret they're trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work.”
- “[Trump] has said about you and Mr. Fruman, 'I don't know those gentlemen, I don't know about them, I don't know what they do.' You're saying that's not a true statement from the president?”
- Parnas: "... but it was never about corruption, it was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden."
- Burisma, which Russian military Intelligence began hacking in early November.
- PARNAS told that Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, vouched for him on calls with Ukrainian officials, confirming to the officials that Parnas was working for Trump.
- Parnas tells #Maddow that VP Pence "couldn't have not known" about Trump and Giuliani's Ukraine pressure campaign.
- Maddow: Was Pence aware of quid pro quo?
- Parnas: “Everyone was in the loop.”
- Parnas to #Maddow: Trump didn’t cancel his trip to meet Zelensky because of the hurricane but because he was mad Zelensky hadn't announced the investigations and Bolton witnessed this. Pence was tasked with getting to Zelensky to make the announcement.
- Parnas tells #Maddow that the incident involving Robert Hyde being removed the a Trump property when Hyde accused Secret Service of monitoring him, etc... had something to do with VP Pence's brother, Greg Pence...?!!
- Regarding the Toensing-diGenova-Giuliani scheme to enlist the help of mobbed-up Ukrainian oligarch Firtash in smearing Biden in exchange for help in dropping the Firtash-DOJ case, Parnas tells #Maddow that “Attorney General Barr was basically on the team.”
- After taking on Firtash’s case in July, Toensing and diGenova secured a rare face-to-face meeting with AG Barr and other DOJ officials to argue the charges against Firtash.
- Toensing's son Brady joined the DOJ in June.
- Parnas tells #Maddow that he and Devin Nunes met several times and that their relationship expanded when he [Parnas] was introduced to Nunes's aide, Derek Harvey. Nunes gave Parnas Derek Harvey to deal with, because Nunes was under ethics investigation.
- Unroll available on Thread Reader