Trump's Pet Ukrainians, Lev and Igor, Arrested Trying To Flee The Country. Trump: "Lev Who? Igor Who?"

The gang's all here

When I read that Russian spies Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman had been arrested Wednesday night--after lunch with Giuliani-- I thought their names sounded very familiar. I vaguely recalled they had been money-laundering large sums of money from the old Soviet Union into Trump's campaign (and pockets). I wrote about it it in July. What we saw back then was how a BuzzFeed team reported that two unofficial envoys reporting directly to Giuliani have waged a remarkable back-channel campaign to discredit Trump's rivals and undermine Mueller's inquiry into Russian meddling in U.S. elections. In a whirlwind of private meetings, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman-- who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican campaigns and dined with the illegitimate U.S. president-- gathered repeatedly with top officials in Ukraine and set up meetings for Giuliani, as they turned up information that could be weaponized in the 2020 presidential race. The 2 criminals were there to urged prosecutors to investigate the Bidens.

The two men-- who both have troubled financial histories-- rose to prominence in Republican circles, meeting with party leaders while injecting hundreds of thousands of dollars into top Republican committees and dozens of candidates’ campaigns.

As they carried out their campaign, they used their proximity to the White House to tout a new business they set up to sell natural gas in Ukraine, with photos posted on Facebook showing Parnas posing with President Trump in the White House and top House members on Capitol Hill.

Their work proved influential. Prosecutors in Kiev announced in March they would investigate the officials accused of trying to steer the election in Clinton’s favor-- a month after meeting with Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani-- and Trump applauded the plan in an interview with Fox News, calling the allegations “big” and “incredible.” The next month, Attorney General William Barr announced he had appointed a federal prosecutor to lead a probe into the origins of the Mueller investigation.

Parnas said he expected the information that he and Fruman advanced to become an important focus of Barr’s inquiry, and to dominate the debate in the run-up to the 2020 election. “It’s all going to come out,” he said. “Something terrible happened and we’re finally going to get to the bottom of it.”

In an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed News at the Trump International Hotel, the 47-year-old former stock broker insisted he and Fruman were not paid for acting as intermediaries between the Ukrainian officials and Giuliani. “All we were doing was passing along information,” he said. “Information was coming to us-- either I bury it or I pass it on. I felt it was my duty to pass it on."

...Kenneth McCallion, a former federal prosecutor who once represented Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said Parnas and Fruman were “playing with fire” by carrying out their campaign in the U.S. and Ukraine without registering as foreign agents or being vetted by the State Department.

“Trump has either authorized Giuliani to engage in private diplomacy and deal-making, or even worse, remains silent while Giuliani and his dodgy band of soldiers of fortune engage in activities that severely undermine US credibility and are contrary to fundamental US interests,” he said.

...What’s clear is that, for Parnas and Fruman, the stakes were more than just political. While they launched a new energy company to operate in Ukraine, large sums of money were flowing into various bank accounts belonging to the men that are now the focus of legal complaints.

In one transaction in 2018, more than $1 million was wired to a bank account belonging to Parnas from the client trust account of a Florida lawyer specializing in real estate and foreign investments. Parnas and Fruman then redirected $325,000 to a Trump-supporting super PAC-- without declaring the original source of the funds, records and interviews show.

The money is now the target of a complaint before the Federal Election Commission by a non-profit watchdog group.

Parnas tried scratching out Pete Sessions' name

Meanwhile Parnas and Fruman were shoveling hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal foreign money into the campaign coffers as bribes to crooked Republicans besides Trump-- like Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Sessions (R-TX), aka "Congressman 1" in the Parnas and Fruman indictment, Joe Wilson (R-SC). Most of their bribes went to the GOP through the RNC and through Republican state parties in New York, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, California, North Dakota, North Carolina, Louisiana, Wyoming, Alabama, Virginia, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, and Illinois. I wonder who directed them to put the money into those particular pots, someone who is likely to eventually head off to prison.

Trump literally wants more immigrants like these two

USA Today helped bring all this up to date in their report of the arrest last night as Parnas and Fruman were caught at Dulles trying to flee the country.

Two Ukrainian-born business partners, who showered Republican campaign committees with nearly $500,000 and dined with President Donald Trump at the White House, were arrested late Wednesday on campaign finances charges, federal authorities said Thursday.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman helped Rudy Giuliani meet a key Ukrainian prosecutor as the president's personal lawyer sought to discredit Trump's political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Both of the men also are among the prospective witnesses House Democrats want to question in their impeachment inquiry.

The indictment charges Parnas, Fruman, David Correia and Andrey Kukushin with federal campaign finance law violations.

It alleges they “conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office so that the defendants could buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns and the candidates’ governments.”

Parnas and Fruman began attending campaign fundraising events in March 2018, the indictment alleged.

They had no significant prior history of political donations, and “sought to advance their personal financial interests and the political interests of at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working,” the indictment charges.

In order to hide their sources of funding and capital, Parnas and Fruman created a limited liability company called Global Energy Producers and “intentionally caused certain large contributions to be reported in the name of GEP instead of their own names,” the indictment charged.

When media reports about the Global Energy Producers' contributions first surfaced, an individual working with Parnas said “{t]his is what happens when you become visible… the buzzards descend,” the indictment charged. “[t]hat’s why we need to stay under the radar…” Parnas responded, according to the indictment.

The indictment also alleges that Parnas, Fruman, Correia and Kukushmin schemed with an unidentified foreign national to get retail marijuana licenses in particular states, including Nevada. In or about September and October 2018, Correia drafted a table of prospective political donations. The table allegedly described a multi-state licensing strategy that would funnel $1 million to $2 million in contributions to federal and state political committees.

The plan also included a funding schedule of two $500,00 transfers. The foreign national arranged for the funds to be wired on or about September 18, 2018, and October 16, 2018 from overseas accounts to a U.S. corporate bank account controlled by Fruman and another individual,” the indictment charged.

The alleged conspirators took steps to hid the foreign national’s involvement and role in the funding “to, in Kukushkin’s words, “his Russian roots and current political paranoia about it,” the indictment charged.

Parnas and Fruman, who were born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union but who now live in Florida, have become political players in recent years. In May 2018, Parnas posted pictures on Facebook of himself and Fruman with Trump in the White House and with his son, Donald Trump Jr., in California. That was the same month their company, Global Energy Producers LLC, was credited for giving $325,000 to a campaign committee that supports Trump's re-election.

But in a legal dust-up that appears unrelated to the Ukraine scandal, the campaign contribution sparked a complaint to the Federal Election Commission-- and at least two lawsuits-- because of questions about the source of the money. Despite the generous political contributions, Parnas faces a $510,000 federal judgment in a case over a debt for a movie that never got made.

Three House committees-- Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform-- scheduled depositions Thursday with Parnas and Friday with Fruman to ask how they fit in with Trump's dealings with Ukraine. Those panels have also subpoenaed documents from Giuliani and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Committee chairs Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel sent subpoenas to Lev and Igor yesterday via their attorney, John Dowd, reminding them all that they are "private citizens who are not employees of the Executive Branch. They may not evade requests from Congress for documents and information necessary to conduct our inquiry. They are required by law to comply with the enclosed subpoenas. They are not exempted from this requirement merely because they happen to work with Mr. Giuliani, and they may not defy congressional subpoenas merely because President Trump has chosen the path of denial, defiance, and obstruction... In addition to providing the subpoenaed documents, the Committees also expect your clients to appear to testify about these matters at a later date."

Trump blatantly lied to reporters yesterday, saying I don’t know those gentleman. Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them because I have a picture with everybody. I don’t know them, I don’t know about them, I don’t know what they do. I don’t know, maybe they were clients of Rudy’s. You’d have to ask Rudy." He also said he doesn't know if Giuliani is about to be indicted. "I haven't spoken to Rudy about it I will say this, from what I heard... they said we have nothing to do with it." And by the way, there are dozens of pictures of Trump with Lev and Igor, sometimes as a pair, sometimes as individuals. No one asked Trump is he plans to give back the $400,000 he's taken in bribes from the two criminals.

Like the Mafia... but worse