Lev Parnas (Credit: Peter Foley/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
“House Democrats on Tuesday released a cache of notes and text messages from former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, shedding significant light on key aspects of ‘Ukrainegate’ at the heart of impeachment proceedings against President Trump. This includes efforts to get the former US Ambassador to Ukraine recalled, as well as Giuliani laying out his mission and the situation in Ukraine at the time.
The first segment of the 38-page release contains several pages of undated, unverified, hand-written notes from the Ritz-Carlton Vienna, ostensibly penned by Parnas – which state “get zelensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated,” and “Put together package,” followed by “Go to D.C. with package,” and “Do my ‘magic’ and cut deal.”
The second segment details January, 2019 efforts by Parnas to have Rudy Giuliani secure a visa for Viktor Shokin – the former Ukrainian prosecutor who instead testified via a January 2019 phone call that he was fired at the request of then-VP Joe Biden for investigating Burisma – a Ukrainian gas company which hired Biden’s son hunter for more than $50,000 per month to sit on its board.
“Btw they declined his visa today,” Parnas wrote Giuliani, referring to Shokin, to which Giuliani responds “I can revive it.”
Despite Giuliani involving “no 1” on it (possibly Trump), he was ultimately unable to secure the visa, leading to Shokin’s testimony via telephone.
The third segment of the release involves discussions from March, 2019 between Parnas and an associate surrounding the effort to get former US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch fired. The associate, Congressional House GOP candidate Robert F. Hyde of Connecticut, appears to have ties within the incoming Zelensky administration – which wanted Yovanovitch fired.” (Read more: The Hill, 1/14/2020) (Archive)