Donald Trump and aides sought today to distance him from a Soviet-born businessman who said Trump knew all about efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating U.S. political rival Joe Biden – a pivotal point in the Senate impeachment trial of the president.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him,” Trump told reporters about Lev Parnas, who is now in the center of the impeachment trial.
Never spoken to him?
Most objective people find this difficult to believe, considering the video and photo evidence of Trump speaking to him on numerous occasions.
Parnas, who worked closely with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, has provided House investigators with documents to buttress his claims that Trump sought political dirt from a foreign country on Biden and on his son Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma.
“It was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden,” Parnas told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, adding that “it was never about corruption. It was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.”
Parnas said Trump knows him well.
He worked for his dad, Fred, in the 1980’s, and his son worked on Trump’s campaign in 2016.
In an interview with CNN, Parnas said that every time Trump denies knowing him, “I’ll show him another picture. He’s lying.”
Trump spoke about his latest accuser as the Senate formally began preparing for trial on impeachment charges that he abused power and obstructed a congressional investigation into his actions regarding Ukraine.
Downplaying Parnas’ claims, a series of Trump administration officials stressed that Parnas is under indictment, and claimed that he is trying to get a lighter sentence by accusing others.
“These allegations are being made by a man who is currently out on bail for federal crimes and is desperate to reduce his exposure to prison,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Parnas also said Vice President Mike Pence knew about the effort to lean on Ukraine to investigate Biden. He said Pence decided not to attend the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky because Ukraine had not announced an investigation of the Bidens.
Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, said that witnesses during the House impeachment investigation “have testified under oath in direct contradiction to Lev Parnas statements.”
It’s “very simple,” Short added: “Lev Parnas is under a multi-count indictment and will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison.”
On another front, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a legal opinion saying that Trump’s Office of Management and Budget “violated the law” in withholding $214 million in security assistance to Ukraine.
During the impeachment investigation, Democrats said Trump used the withheld aid in an attempt to extort Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Biden.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who requested the GAO investigation, said the GAO report proves that “the Trump Administration illegally withheld assistance from Ukraine and the public evidence shows that the president himself ordered this illegal act.”