Two Soviet-born donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden were arrested on criminal charges stemming from their alleged efforts to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections and influence U.S. politics on behalf of Ukrainian and other foreign politicians.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Florida businessmen, were arrested while awaiting an international flight at Dulles Airport, a day before one of them was scheduled to testify before House committees.
In a 21-page indictment unsealed today, federal prosecutors in Manhattan alleged Parnas and Fruman were engaged in political activities in the U.S. on behalf of one or more Ukrainian government officials — including a lobbying campaign, targeted at a Republican congressman, to remove the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv.
President Trump ordered the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, removed from her post in May.
Their political giving — aimed at Republicans — was funded in part by an unnamed Russian donor, the indictment alleges. Federal law bans foreigners from contributing to U.S. elections.
A limited liability company created by the men was used to disguise the foreign money, the indictment says.
The men were charged with four counts, including conspiracy, falsification of records and lying to the Federal Election Commission about their political donations, according to the indictment.
Messrs. Parnas and Fruman assistedGiuliani’s effort to investigate Biden’s son that is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry being conducted by House Democrats.
House committees issued subpoenas for documents from the two men today.
Since late 2018, Fruman and Parnas have introduced Giuliani to several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors to discuss the Biden case, acting as key conduits of information.
The two had lunch with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Wednesday, according to a person who was in the hotel and saw the three together.
While Giuliani used the two men for finding dirt on Biden and his son Hunter, they, in turn, solicited money from Ukrainians while touting their connections to Washington, according to people familiar with their activities in Ukraine.
Giuliani, Trump’s private lawyer, identified the two men in May as his clients.
On Thursday, he said he wasn’t representing them in this case.
He told Fox News on Thursday that he found their arrest “extremely suspicious.”
John Dowd, also a lawyer for Parnas and Fruman, has previously told Congress that the men were assisting Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump.”
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer forTrump, said: “Neither the president nor the campaign nor political-action committees were aware of these transactions.”
Parnas and Fruman had almost no history of political giving before March 2018, when they both began to spend lavishly on politics, according to the indictment, although Parnas had contributed about $100,000 to Trump’s initial campaign in late October 2016, FEC records show.
They began last year donating to Republican campaigns including Trump’s reelection bid and outside groups that support him.
Prosecutors outlined a scheme by which Parnas and Fruman made donations aimed at concealing the source of the funds.
The indictment alleges that Parnas and Fruman conspired with two other men also named as defendants — David Correia, Parnas’s longtime business partner and No. 2, and Andrey Kukushkin — to make political donations funded by a foreign national to federal and state candidates “to gain influence with candidates as to policies that would benefit a future business venture” — a recreational marijuana business.
Kukushkin has also been arrested but Correia hasn’t been apprehended, an official said.
The charging documents say that in May 2018 the men gave $325,000 to the primary pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, through the LLC Global Energy Producers, according to FEC records.
The way they structured that donation was meant “to evade the reporting requirements” in federal law, prosecutors said.
The indictment also alleges that Fruman intentionally misspelled his name to further evade FEC scrutiny.
Fundraising records show that an “Igor Furman,” whose details otherwise match those of Fruman, made additional campaign donations totaling almost $400,000 beginning in March 2018.
That would bring the pair’s contributions to about $1 million.
Attorney General William Barr discussed the case today with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, where he was making a preplanned visit.
A Justice Department official said Barr was supportive of their work on the case, on which he was first briefed shortly after being confirmed as attorney general in February.
He was aware on Wednesday night that the pair would be charged and taken into custody last night, the official said.
Parnas and Fruman had dinner with Trump in early May 2018, shortly before they donated to the pro-Trump super PAC, according to since-deleted Facebook posts captured in a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a nonprofit U.S.-based media organization.
They also met later that month with the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. at a fundraising breakfast in Beverly Hills, Calif., along with Tommy Hicks Jr., a close friend of the younger Trump who at the time was heading America First Action.
Parnas posted a photo of their breakfast four days after his LLC donated to the super PAC.
A spokeswoman for America First Action said the super PAC had placed the contribution in a segregated bank account following the complaint filed with the FEC.
The donation “has not been used for any purpose and the funds will remain in this segregated account until these matters are resolved,” the spokeswoman said.
“We take our legal obligations seriously and scrupulously comply with the law and any suggestion otherwise is false.”
Parnas in July accompanied Giuliani to a breakfast meeting with Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations.
During that breakfast, Giuliani mentioned the investigations he was pursuing into Biden and 2016 election interference, according to Volker’s testimony to House committees.
The indictment refers to a congressman, identifiable as former Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, whose assistance Parnas sought in “causing the U.S. government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.”
The indictment says those efforts were conducted “at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”
In May 2018, Sessions, a Republican, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking for her removal, saying he had been told Yovanovitch was displaying a bias against the president in private conversations.
Sessions last week declined to say where his information about the ambassador came from.
Parnas and Fruman told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in July that they told Sessions last year Yovanovitch was “bad-mouthing” the president.
They later donated to his campaign.
Trump moved to oust Yovanovitch this spring after Giuliani told him that she was undermining him abroad and hindering efforts to investigate Biden.
House committees are seeking Yovanovitch’s testimony.
The indictment also says the men met in July 2018 in Las Vegas to hatch plans to start a recreational marijuana business in Nevada that would be funded by the unnamed Russian national.
Their plan was to contribute as much as $2 million to politicians in Nevada, New York and other states with the goal of acquiring marijuana licenses, the indictment says. When they missed the deadline to apply for a license in Nevada, they made additional contributions to candidates there to try to get their business greenlighted.
Parnas, Fruman and their business partner, Kukushkin, attended an Oct. 20, 2018, rally in Nevada, according to the indictment.
That day, Trump held a rally in Elko, Nevada, to urge support for Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt.
Nevada state fundraising records show Fruman gave $10,000 to Laxalt and Republican attorney-general candidate Wesley Duncan on Nov. 1, 2018.
Both men lost to Democrats; neither could be reached for comment Thursday.