Lev Parnas Interview

 

Denver Riggleman, former Air Force intelligence officer, Republican Congressman and data man for the Select Committee on January 6, has two interviews of Lev Parnas on his podcast that are intentionally incomplete, describing only a part of Parnas' adventures and Rudy Giuliani's point man in Ukraine, presumably as a teaser to entice listeners into buying Parnas' book setting forth his adventures in greater detail.  

I found the first half interesting and the second half wildly implausible.

By Parnas' account, Giuliani was traveling throughout Ukraine in 2018 looking for evidence of Ukrainian "interference" in the 2016 election.  He did not go into detail on this, saying that he was not involved in that part.  Joe Biden was not on Giuliani's radar screen for most of 2018.

The focus on Biden apparently began in November, 2018, when Giuliani heard the recording of Biden's speech to the Counsel on Foreign Relations in which he boasted about getting Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired.  The actual speech took place on January 23, 2018, but Giuliani apparently did not learn about it until that November.  For reasons that are not clear, Giuliani jumped to the conclusion that Biden demanded the firing for corrupt reasons.*   He promptly tasked Parnas and Parnas' friend Igor Fruman to find Shokin.  

The two were successful and sought to bring Shokin to the US, but Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch denied him a visa.  And I honestly do not know enough to say whether this was or was not appropriate on her part, but it certainly contributed to Giuliani's general hostility to her.  Instead, Giuliani and his associates talked to Shokin by Skype in January, 2019.  While Shokin was able to describe Hunter's activities in highly suggestive and sinister terms, nothing he described was actually illegal.  Giuliani, experienced lawyer that he was, recognized this and cut the conversation short, demanding to know what Hunter did that was actually illegal.  Shokin could only say that he did not find anything illegal, BUT he was sure that was just because he was fired before he found it and that the proof was somewhere in the Prosecutor General's office.**

The sensible thing to do at this point was realize that Shokin was stringing them on.  Naturally, Giuliani did nothing of the kind, and instead decided to find Shokin's successor, Yuri Lutsenko, to see what he had to offer.  So when Lutsenko contacted them two days later to say that he was in the US and wanted them to arrange a meeting with Bill Barr, Parnas was inclined to think it was not a coincidence.  

Actually, to judge from the conversation, it probably was just a coincidence. The conversation was about a wholly unrelated corruption matter that Lutsenko was investigating that involved US players and that he seemed interested in pursuing.  Giuliani was uninterested in anything that did not promote Trump's personal fortunes and said he had no interest in anything that did not involve Hunter Biden, but would be willing to arrange a meeting with Barr for $200,000.  Parnas says that Lutsenko had looked to the US in general and Giuliani in particular as heroes of honest government and was shocked at the shakedown.  On the whole, Parnas appears to treat Lutsenko and the President, Petro Poroshenko, as good faith actors who were serious about fighting Ukrainian corruption.*** 

Nonetheless, Lutsenko took the hint and the next day brought financial records that proved that Hunter had worked for Burisma and that Burisma had paid him, but nothing proving actual criminality.  Trump actually called during the conversation to see how it was going and demonstrate how important it was to him.

Their next meeting took place in the week of Valentine's Day, 2019 and was in Poland because Giuliani did not want to be seen traveling to Ukraine. (Parnas says they met in a bar and drank over $8000 worth of whiskey, which sounds positively lethal!).  The most significant event was that Lutsenko arranged for Parnas to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Poroshenko, then running for reelection against Zelensky.  After some cloak and dagger maneuvers to conceal the meeting, Parnas offered Trump's endorsement for reelection if Poroshenko would give him dirt on the Bidens. Poroshenko was skeptical, saying that last time they met, Trump had offered his endorsement if Poroshenko would buy coal from a particular town in Pennsylvania so Trump could boast about it at a campaign rally.  Poroshenko obliged and got nothing in return, so he refused to commit.

Again, Parnas seems to see Poroshenko as a good faith actor.  It also makes Zelensky's refusal to bend to Trump's demands for dirt seem somewhat less remarkable.  Both men were trying to clean up Ukrainian governance and being undermined by the US President.

It was interesting and revealed things I had not previously known.  In part 2, Riggleman promised more shocking details, but the whole thing sounded frankly paranoid.  Parnas said he started hearing in February about getting access to Hunter's laptop. This was significant because it took place before Hunter dropped off the laptop at the repair shop that April.  Riggleman also teased out details about meetings with actual agents of Russian intelligence, but none of this was actually discussed in the interview (teasing for the book, I assume).

Instead, they skipped over directly to Parnas' arrest on October 9, 2019, just about the time the first impeachment inquiry was heating up.  Parnas said he believed that he was arrested at the order of William Barr to prevent him from blowing the whole thing open and revealing information that would have left the Senate with no choice but to convict.

That makes no sense at all, on multiple levels.  First of all, it is abundantly clear that Republican Senators' refusal to convict had nothing to do with the evidence.  Donald Trump could have shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and Republican Senators would not have voted to convict.  (The second impeachment is proof of that).  Second, at the time of his arrest, Parnas was fulling in the tank for Trump, refusing to release subpoenaed documents.  If summoned in front of the investigating committee, he would undoubtedly have taken the Fifth.  Finally, Parnas an Fruman were arrested for campaign finance violations, and Riggleman makes the point that arrests for such charges are almost unheard-of.  What both men avoid discussing is that Parnas and Fruman were arrested at the airport with one-way tickets out of the country.  In other words, it appears that they were arrested to keep them from fleeing the country to avoid testifying against Trump!

All of which very strongly suggests that it was not, in fact, brought at Barr's direction, but the work of DOJ professionals with the Southern District of New York, acting very much at cross-purposes from Trump.  In other words, this was yet again the work of the so-called "Deep State."

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*Hunter Biden's role in Burisma was well known and much criticized at the time, so presumably that is the answer. 
**Parnas, it should be noted, is ambiguous about whether Burisma was actually doing anything corrupt, or whether Shokin was simply using investigations as an excuse to shake them down.
***This is actually surprising, in light of documents Parnas previously released, which seemed to indicate that Lutsenko was hostile to Yovanovitch because of her aggressiveness on corruption and demanded her firing as a condition of giving any dirt on the Bidens.  In this interview, Parnas treats Lutsenko as a good faith actor and the initiative as coming from the US side.  Another data point in assessing his credibility.