Lev Parnas, the associate of Rudy Giuliani who is CEO of Fraud Guarantee, is willing to tell Congress about how House Intelligence Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) was digging for dirt on Joe Biden during Nunes’ European investigations, and Parnas would comply with a subpoena as a part of the impeachment inquiry, according to CNN.
The meeting in question was in Vienna in 2018 with a former Ukrainian prosecutor, CNN reported. “Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December,” Parnas’ attorney Joseph A. Bondy told the network.
In fact, Bondy might already be talking to congressional investigators. This tweet on Friday with #LetLevSpeak doesn’t give a definite answer.
Bondy also said Nunes pushed allegations about Joe and Hunter Biden. “Nunes had told Shokin of the urgent need to launch investigations into Burisma, Joe and Hunter Biden, and any purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Bondy told the network.
Bondy said Parnas and Nunes talked on the phone at least twice after an in-person meeting in 2018 where Parnas was told to work with Nunes aide Derek Harvey. Parnas said after the Vienna trip, he also met with Harvey at Trump’s Washington hotel. Previous reporting seemed to indicate that Nunes’ associate attended these European meetings, but was unclear on if Nunes was present.
Nunes declined multiple requests from comment by CNN, but after the CNN story went up, called the reporting “demonstrably false and scandalous” in a statement to Brietbart. (In the statement, Nunes also says he intends to sue the Daily Beast and CNN “soon after Thanksgiving,” but until papers are filed, it’s just blustering.)
Shokin was dismissed from his position by parliament in March 2016 after the United States and other Western countries demanded Shokin’s ouster for failing to adequately address corruption.
This is not the only connection between Republicans and Shokin. In January, Giuliani pushed for Shokin to be granted a visa, CNN reported in October, so Giuliani could interview Shokin. The visa never came to fruition so the men spoke via Skype, which knowing Giuliani’s technology capabilities was likely hell.
In the Skype call on January 23, Giuliani said Shokin told him about how the Democrats coordinated with, as CNN phrased it, “people in Ukraine” as well as dirt on Hunter Biden and Burisma Holdings. (No word if the dirt was about Biden’s secret child, you know, something that actually qualifies as political dirt.) Giuliani’s documents detailing was Shokin told him was given to the State Department inspector general who in turn gave the documents to congressional investigators, CNN reported.