BUSTED: Rudy Giuliani’s two Ukraine fixers arrested for violating campaign finance laws
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The two foreign-born men who have been helping Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine have been arrested for violating campaign finance laws.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Florida businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested on late Wednesday night and are expected to appear in court on Thursday.
The two men, who are believed to have been born in former Soviet republics, have been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the Journal reports. At this point there is no specific information about the charges the two men face.
Parnas and Fruman are key figures in the scandal surrounding President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to launch investigations against his political opponents. The two businessmen helped arrange meetings between Giuliani and Ukrainian prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, who at one point claimed to have dirt on the Bidens.
Biden, with the support of multiple western governments, was part of an effort to get Ukraine to fire Lutsenko because he was not doing enough to investigate corruption in the country.
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Expect to hear more about these two as the Ukraine saga unfolds.
Give me a little break John. I need more popcorn.
Me too.
Mr. Frost keeps eating it all.
Wait, who's that tall fucker?
Lies, all lies.. LOL
Shouldn't that read Viktor Shokin, not Lutsenko? Not that Lutsenko was much better than Shokin.
Nah. All of these Russian sounding names that continue to 'pop up' around the Trump are just to darn difficult to keep straight.
Bang, bang. They all go down. Unfortunately it will be from bottom to top.
Sister, these two were involved directly in an effort to get the lady ambassador that you have seeded about removed. They are crooked and in the middle of Giuliani's illicit activity in Ukraine. Follow the money.
You're telling me like I don't already know this. Dammit.
I know you know. I was saying it for people who may not know as much as you do.
And now I know that you know that she knows! But not to worry-- I'll keep it quiet!
(Maybe what we need is a good 'ole fashioned Minny Rally!
Once the bottoms are gone, the top will be history.
Would these two equate to "the plumbers" hired by J. Gordon Liddy? and caught during the Watergate break-in?
They have been arrested for campaign finance violations, but there is more to the story. These two were eyes and ears so to speak for Giuliani in Ukraine circles and told him who to talk to as he sought to dig up dirt on Biden. They "coincidentally" were part of an effort to gain control over the board that regulates Ukraines gas industry. Not surprisingly, they run a business that wants to sell natural gas to Ukraine.
But, but Hillary. /s
I understand that Trey Goudy is thinking about joining the Ukrainian investigation "dream team"...... He's smart enough to say no on this one.
WASHINGTON — Trey Gowdy, the former South Carolina congressman who led the committee that investigated the terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, will join President Trump’s legal team as an outside adviser.
I think it's a done deal.
He also said that the WH withholding information in an impeachment inquiry is wrong... Oh wait, he said that during the Clinton impeachment. Pretty sure he won't be repeating that line this time around.
He is now just another clown in Trump's clown car.
He is a hypocritical con man. He spend almost his entire time in office trying to get dirt on Hillary.
He is a useful idiot.
You mean Mr. Bengowdy....
His use will end and Trump along with lap dog Rudy will throw him under the bus.
Correction, that was in 2012... My mistake.
Nope..... He decided against joining "the dream team". Trey knows when to cut and run....
I guess I will have to credit him with more intelligence than I used to
He was never dumb..... Just up for reelection.
He might not be dumb but he is counting on the voters to be so.
.....Over the weekend, new reports revealed two attempts — first by a group of profit-minded Trump allies, and later by Energy Secretary Rick Perry — to push for a change of leadership at Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state-owned oil company. The Associated Press explains the first effort in their report:
The group, which included two men at the center of Trump’s efforts to dig up Ukranian dirt on his political opponents, was not able to achieve its aims before a new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, took office in the country, and efforts to make similar inroads with his administration failed.
Perry, who has become the Trump administration’s self-appointed global ambassador for the American energy sector, represented the U.S. at Zelensky’s inauguration. On the same trip, according to the AP, he pressed the new leader to shake up Naftogaz’s board, and recommended as one of his suggested replacements at least one Texas-based energy executive with whom he had political connections as the state’s former governor. Perry has denied any impropriety over the matter, insisting he was giving Ukraine recommendations it had asked for.
It’s not yet clear if the two efforts, which were only a few months apart, were somehow linked.
Who are the Trump allies who tried to score the energy deal?
Per the Associated Press, three Florida-based businessmen — Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, and Harry Sargeant III — were at the center of a shadowy effort to turn ties to Trump into a lucrative gas sales deal with Naftogaz.
Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas
Fruman and Parnas are Soviet-born, Ukrainian-American real estate entrepreneurs in South Florida with a history of shady business deals both in the U.S. and abroad; both have played a critical role in President Trump’s efforts to dig up damaging information in Ukraine about his political enemies.
They are clients of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who they apparently befriended after quickly donating their way into the MAGA elite last year. The men have also reportedly acted as unregistered operatives for the Trump team in Ukraine, meeting at least four times with Ukrainian prosecutors, and introducing Giuliani to members of the country’s political elite as he pursued information which could damage Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Indeed, Fruman and Parnas were reportedly instrumental in starting and then promoting the two debunked conspiracies, including the theory targeting the Biden family, which President Trump asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate in their July 25 phone conversation. The businessmen were also reportedly responsible for much of the push to remove the former Obama-appointed U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who the Trump administration recalled in May.
According to BuzzFeed News and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project , starting in 2018, the two businessmen donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican lawmakers, GOP causes, and pro-Trump groups. That includes a $325,000 contribution to the Trump-boosting America First Action super PAC in May of 2018 which was so shady it got flagged by a non-partisan watchdog organization for review by the FEC .
Their political contributions granted the businessmen a place among the MAGA donor class, with all the accompanying perks and influence. Fruman and Parnas have attended events and meetings in both Mar-a-Lago and Washington. Parnas, a former securities broker, has claimed that he has met with President Trump multiple times. Fruman and Parnas have allegedly cited their connections to Giuliani and other members of the GOP elite when trying to convince people to lend them money. On October 1, the Miami Herald reported that the two men have left a trail of debt across South Florida.
Fruman and Parnas also founded a so-called gas export company in 2018 named Global Energy Producers, but the men appear to have no experience in the energy sector. The Campaign Legal Center, the watchdog that flagged their massive super PAC donation, alleges that the company is nothing more than a shell corporation.
Both businessmen were referenced, but not named, in the whistleblower complaint which sparked Trump’s Ukraine scandal, and impeachment inquiry investigators have requested information from the men regarding their ties to, and work with, Giuliani and the Trump administration.
It had previously been reported that the men had met with Naftogaz in an attempt to become natural gas suppliers to the company, but that nothing came of it.
Trumps house of cards is beginning to fall apart.
But he is still hoping to resume his "The Apprentice" reality show once he leaves the WH. After all, most of his rabid supporters could not face giving up Trumps' reality WH farce for any length of time, so another one has to replace it.
And I am sure all his previous "The Apprentice" sponsors will be more than happy to support his reality TV farce again. However, the reality of real life just might have other plans for him. /s
Not if they want to keep their customers. If that idiotic show resurfaces, I for one will never buy from those sponsors again.
Same here. However, I don't think those sponsors will be that stupid, no matter how much Trump begs or threatens. After all, it will very hard to sell their goods with any credibility when the show is being shown from a jail cell. /s
Here is a "family portrait" of the co-conspirators:
From left to right: Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. [Miami Herald]
Am anxiously awaiting for the ( Stormy Who ) to become a part of the Trumpian defense strategy.
Guess who chairs the America First PAC? Linda McMahon, Trump's former SBA Director, resigned that post in April of 2019 to chair America First. For those not in the know, Linda is the wife of Trump's long-time business partner, Vince McMahon.
Yeah, this guy:
Vince is the one wearing the shaving cream. Trump is the one doing the shaving.
BTW, the timing of Linda's resignation as SBA director, and her decision to chair America First, is a bitch-slap non-coincidence. April 2019 was apparently a big month for Trump shenanigans.
Fake wrestler, fake POTUS. Irony.. LOL
This whole white house is a pack of lying whore thugs !
Do "whore thugs" beat the fuck out of people?
I would have been happier with Giuliani behind bars. The crooked piece of shit. He is a disgusting human being.
Patience, Young Padawan, patience
For those of us that might be older older.....
Patience Grasshopper, Patience!
Oh, come on! You're not that old!
I think Rudy should do a 2 hour special on Cuomo's show. 2 hours should be long enough for Rudy to incriminate himself, trump (again), and most of trump's staff.
He would have spittle flying out of his mouth while flubbing all of his lies.
If he lasted two hours. He would probably vapor lock after the first hour.
You can really tell when he is lying and/or very anxious about something when he does that. I have seen him do that several time when being questioned on news shows.
He starts sweating like a preacher in a whore house
He would be doing that before the first commercial break.
So apparently the House already had these two turds on the schedule to testify this week and they were arrested trying to board a plane out of the country. Yea, doesn't scream out, "GUILTY!!!" at all... /s
Confirmed, they were arrested at Dulles airport attempting to flee the country.
Hmm...wonder what they were fleeing from? ?? Or.....maybe....WHO? ??
From the reports, one way tickets as well...... There were going to meet Rudy in Vienna, Austria.
Trump probably paid for their tickets.
They had one way tickets also.
ITS TIME FOR CONGRESS TO ARREST RUDY GIULIANI
Trump is playing constitutional hardball. The House must answer in kind.
The Congress has not exercised inherent contempt since the 1920s. That’s when the US Senate authorized the arrest of the US attorney general’s brother for failing to appear on subpoena. The AG’s brother appealed his case all the way to the US Supreme Court, where Justice Willis Van Devanter, writing for the majority, wrote that: “Each house of Congress has power, through its own process, to compel a private individual to appear before it or one of its committees and give testimony needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to it under the Constitution” (italics mine).
Now’s the time to dust off that power. For one thing, Trump must be held accountable. For another, his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is at the heart of the president’s impeachment for the extortion of a foreign leader to interfere in 2020. Like his client, Giuliani has said there’s no way no how he’s going to cooperate with the Democrats.
It so happens that two of Giuliani’s Soviet-born business associates were arrested this morning in Florida on campaign finance charges. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were key figures in Giuliani’s effort to get Ukraine to “investigate” Democrat Joe Biden. Parnas and Fruman were also involved apparently in a scheme to funnel Russian money to GOP campaigns. An unidentified member of congress was asked to help remove the US ambassador to Ukraine in exchange for cash. ( The Daily Beast ’s Sam Stein says it’s Pete Sessions.) The stench of criminality is now wafting over Giuliani. Arresting and detaining him until he cooperates would seem entirely reasonable.
Of course, the Democrats don’t have to go as far as jailing people. (There is a jail at the Capitol, but detainees would likely be detained in a hotel.) They can issues fines. They can also, as Josh Chafetz wrote for the Times today, zero out funding in the next budget for the White House Counsel’s Office, thus starving the president’s legal defense. But the arrest and detention of Donald Trump’s bag man would have a certain dramatic flourish befitting of America’s first reality-television president. The long-awaited constitutional crisis has arrived. The House Democrats must rise to the occasion.
I would suspect that this is coming very soon, a week, two at the most.
It's definitely time to take some of your deer's popcorn. I think a shortage is about to occurr
I stocked up the day Trump had his fingers crossed during the oath.
Well, I've been waiting for the indictment of Andy McCabe since last August, lol.
another nothing burger. Who cares?
I would love to see most if not all of these campaign finance laws repealed.
And these two have nothing to do with Trump, nor is there any such allegation in the indictment.
This is just more of the left and the deep state showing their love of tyranny over liberty
So, do you really want to make it legal for foreigners and even enemy foreign governments to influence our American elections? You want foreign interests to be able to contribute $$$ to American candidates and to political parties? Really? That shit will never pass. I will never understand the goddamn gop...
I'm all for wide open elections with full transparency and let people decide. I'm not bothered at all by foreign contributions and Democrats didn't use to be. After all Gore was a bag man for Clinton picking up Chinese money from Buddhist Monks in CA who had taken a vow of poverty.
Hillary and Bill had no problem with foreign money for her political future.
And last of all, I'm not a Republican and haven't been since I left the GOP in 1970. I did vote for Reagan in 80 and 84.
So let me get this straight. All Liberals are evil, Democrats are the spawn of Satan yet you want elections laws repealed.
You don't care if Russia or any other country can run adds in elections or financially back a candidate.
And you are not a republican, you just like them and what they are doing...uh huh.
Oh heavens no.
You're not a Republican, you just worship Trump.
All I've got to say is thank goodness it isn't up to you because all that shit you said is whack. The deal is this. We do have laws against foreigners and foreign governments trying to influence our elections whether you like them or not and Trump is going to be impeached for breaking those laws...
You want to know what the deep state is?
The deep state are long term employees of the United States that take their oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution to heart. These are the people Trump hates because they don't have loyalty to him but to our country. These are the people he works hard at getting rid of, or denigrating at every opportunity. We are talking generals with 30 years of honorable service, members of the intelligence services that have served multiple administrations both left and right to protect our way of life.
Apparently right before they were arrested trying to flee the country on one way tickets to Vienna Rudy Giuliani had lunch at Trump Towers with his Ukranian "Associates" Lev and Igor.
Rudy, by the way, was also scheduled to be traveling to Vienna today. My my my, isn't that convenient? This is all just getting even weirder and weirder!
Somebody answer me this. Why in hell have Trump & Co not been removed from office and arrested already? There were damn good reasons why our Founders gave us mechanisms for removing corrupt leadership. Now, today, is finally the time to use them, if ever there was one! So, Just Do It...
Well you have to give him credit for having balls - none of the other Trump worshippers have even commented on this.
Seriously comrade?
Although I'm sure they've looked better, these two look like they were plucked straight out of central casting. "I need two guys who look like pissed-off Ukrainian mobsters, stat!"
Lev and Igor (Those are their names) were supposed to be meeting up with Rudy again today in Vienna but they were arrested trying to abscond. I bet they are singing like the Vienna Boys Choir by now. Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall?
Also, they all had a very public lunch together at Trump Tower just yesterday right before lev and Igor were arrested at the airport. Lev and Igor do not seem to be the kind of fellows who, um, won't talk to investigators. I bet Rudy and Trump are sweating borscht by now...
Hahahahaha!!!!!
Trump looks like he is thinking "What the hell did I just grab?"
Rudy shows us how he settles into his coffin before the sun comes up.
Are you saying that he is a fucking vampire?
Slowly they turn. Step by step. Inch by inch. Then POW! Right in the IMPEACHMENT...
I love your meme!
The mug shots are a nice touch.
Thank you, I found it on FB
I hope someone puts together a coffee table book of the mugshots from this administration.
They could do about 3 years of a calendar without a repeat.
Awesome meme.
But Donny-Boy doesn't know those guys!!!!!!!!
Marie Yovanovitch just walked through security. .
Trump's appeal regarding his tax returns...DENIED.
And...it's finally raining...a lovely soaking rain...here in Dallas.
It's a good day so far.
The two foreign-born men
How interesting that the msm keeps referring to them as "foreign born men". They are American citizens. I see that our google mates aren't so hot to correct this misleading narrative.