Two Florida businessmen and associated for Rudy Giuliani, president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, were arrested at Dulles International Airport with one-way tickets out of the country. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are charged with campaign finance violations and the prosecution could prove a further complication for the Trump legal team. Some media outlets are reporting that the men had lunch with Giuliani only hours before their arrest. Trump has said “I don’t know them” and told reporters to “ask Rudy.”
The men are charged with using a limited liability corporation, Global Energy Producers, to “intentionally cause[] certain large contributions to be reported in the name of GEP instead of in their own names.” The contribution was a $325,000 donation to Trump’s reelection effort.
Both Parnas and Fruman have been mentioned as part of Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine. Parnas reportedly sought to get a member of Congress to push for the firing of the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine. The member has been reported as former Rep. Pete Sessions (R., Tx). The men are being represented by John Dowd, who previously represented President Trump.
Given the high level of scrutiny of Giuliani and his associates, any such violation, if true, would be breathtakingly stupid. While this occurred before the uptick in coverage of the Ukraine controversy, Giuliani and his operations were already the focus of countless reporters.
This type of case tends to be relatively easy to prosecute. Either the money came from the corporation or it did not. That could lead one or both of the men to seek a plea agreement. The benefit of an agreement however depends on whether you have something to trade. The one thing they may have is information and, even if they do not seek a deal, Congress will be eager to speak to the men on the Ukraine matter. They are now much easier to locate.
“Lutsenko is unnamed Ukrainian who led plot to oust Yovanovitch, says official”
“Lutsenko is the Ukrainian official who prosecutors say urged 2 Giuliani associates to push for the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/lutsenko-unnamed-ukrainian-who-led-plot-oust-yovanovitch-says-official-n1065246
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Testifying in defiance of President Donald Trump’s ban, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House impeachment investigators Friday that Trump himself had pressured the State Department to oust her from her post and get her out of the country.
Yovanovitch told lawmakers investigating Trump’s dealings with Ukraine that there was a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
The diplomat was recalled from Kyiv as Rudy Giuliani — who is Trump’s personal attorney and has no official role in the U.S. government — pressed Ukrainian officials to investigate baseless corruption allegations against Democrat Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who was involved with a gas company there. Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors Friday as part of the House Democrats’ impeachment investigation. Her prepared remarks were obtained by The Associated Press.
The former ambassador says she was fired from her post after insisting that Giuliani’s requests to Ukrainian officials for investigations be relayed through official channels, according to a former diplomat who has spoken with her. That former diplomat insisted on anonymity to disclose the private conversation.
Don’t know how it happened, but I posted the above AP article.
Today’s WaPo
“The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a topic of interest for House impeachment investigators said Friday that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her, according to her prepared remarks before Congress obtained by The Washington Post.
Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kiev on “the next plane” this spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, though she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the State Department had been under significant pressure to remove her since the summer of 2018.
In explaining her departure, she acknowledged months of criticisms by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former vice president Joe Biden and his son who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
She denied those allegations and said she was “incredulous” that her superiors decided to remove her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.” She also took direct aim at Giuliani’s associates whom she said could’ve been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
“Contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine,” she said….”
AP today:
“Yovanovitch was removed from her post after insisting that Giuliani’s requests to Ukrainian officials for investigations be relayed through official channels, according to a former diplomat who has spoken with her.
In a July 25 phone call, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Yovanovitch was “bad news,” according to a partial transcript released by the White House. Neither Giuliani nor Trump has publicly specified their objections to Yovanovitch.
Businessmen with ties to Giuliani lobbied a U.S. congressman in 2018 for help ousting Yovanovitch, according to an indictment made public Thursday following the men’s arrest. It alleges that the men leveraged a flurry of GOP political donations to force Yovanovitch’s removal, an effort prosecutors say was aided by laundered foreign money.
The former diplomat who spoke with Yovanovitch said the ambassador refused to do “all this offline, personal, informal stuff” and made clear that the U.S. government had formal ways to request foreign governments’ help with investigations. The former diplomat insisted on anonymity to disclose the private conversation.
The State Department traditionally relies on mutual legal assistance treaties, under which U.S. and foreign officials agree to exchange evidence and information in criminal investigations…..
Yovanovitch has led U.S. embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia and is now a State Department fellow at Georgetown University. The director of the Georgetown program, Barbara Bodine, said the former envoy is declining all requests for interviews.
Former colleagues of Yovanovitch said Trump allies’ characterizations of her as politically motivated are off-base.
She is “a top-notch diplomat, careful, meticulous, whip smart,” and unlikely to have badmouthed Trump, either to Ukrainian officials or her colleagues, said John Herbst, a predecessor as ambassador in Ukraine who worked alongside Yovanovitch there in the early 2000s.
Yovanovitch has always known that the role of diplomat “wasn’t about her” but about “serving American national interests and supporting the people around her,” said Nancy McEldowney, a former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria who now directs a Foreign Service program at Georgetown.”
Timing is very suspicious. Reminds me of Russia-gate when we coincidentally saw arrests with Russia connection during period of hype. SDNY is not a friend of Trump, they probably knew about these clowns for a long time and pulled trigger now to add more murkiness to Ukraine-gate mosaic.
One would think that Rudy did not think about why these guys are leaving the country.
Clients now = Associates in an Orwellian world.
****Hillary PAC Spends $1 Million to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook****
FEC loopholes mean Correct the Record can openly coordinate with Clinton’s campaign.
Citing “lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Bernie Bros,’” a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is pledging to spend $1 million to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.
Correct the Record’s “Barrier Breakers” project boasts in a press release that it has already “addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.” The PAC released this on Thursday.
The PAC was created in May of last year when it was spun off from the American Bridge SuperPAC, which is run by longtime Hillary and Bill Clinton supporter David Brock. Brock also founded the left-wing media watchdog website Media Matters for America.
Some Bernie Sanders-supporting users on Reddit already started to notice the changes on Thursday afternoon.
“This explains why my inbox turned to cancer on Tuesday,” wrote user OKarizee. “Been a member of reddit for almost 4 years and never experienced anything like it. In fact, in all my years on the internet I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Correct the Record, which has received $5 million this campaign season and has spent almost $4.5 million of it, according to OpenSecrets.org, outlined its strategy against “swarms of anonymous attackers” in a press release.
“While Hillary Clinton fights to break down barriers and bring America together, the Barrier Breakers 2016 digital task force will serve as a resource for supporters looking for positive content and push-back to share with their online progressive communities, as well as thanking prominent supporters and committed superdelegates on social media,” the statement read.
Due to FEC loopholes, the Sunlight Foundation’s Libby Watson found this year that Correct the Record can openly coordinate with Clinton’s campaign, despite rules that typically disallow political campaigns from working directly with PACs.
“SuperPACs aren’t supposed to coordinate with candidates. The whole reasoning behind (Supreme Court decision) Citizens United rests on (PACs) being independent, but Correct the Record claims it can coordinate,” Watson told The Daily Beast. “It’s not totally clear what their reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the Internet for free—like, blogs—doesn’t count as an ‘independent expenditure.’”
Watson previously worked at Brock’s Media Matters for America, where “their whole mission is to debunk conservative misinformation [and] a lot of that ends up being defending Hillary Clinton,” but says she’s never seen anything like this initiative.
“Usually places like MMFA and CTR are defending her against the media and established figures. This seems to be going after essentially random individuals online,” she said. “I don’t know that they’ve done anything like this before.”
Campaign Legal Center lawyer Paul Ryan (who bears no relation to the Speaker of the House) told Time magazine in September of last year that Correct The Record is “creating new ways to undermine campaign regulation.” Watson used Ryan’s complaint in the Sunlight Foundation’s report about the most influential organizations working behind the scenes for the Clinton camp.
“Campaign finance lawyers are not that impressed with [CTR’s] logic, but they can get away with it because the [Federal Election Commission] is deadlocked and does nothing,” she said.
“Barrier Breakers 2016 is focused on pushing out positive content to Hillary supporters online to counter negative attacks and false narratives,” Correct the Record’s communications director, Elizabeth Shappell, told The Daily Beast. “The expanded task force was established in anticipation of the general election.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-million-to-correct-commenters-on-reddit-and-facebook
Ha ha ha. They’re spending the money on per diem payments to Peter Hill and Natacha.
David Brock as Wile E. Coyote.
NBC: Trump’s former Russia aide set to give revealing testimony on Giuliani, Sonland
Oct. 10, 2019, 7:37 PM EDT
By Josh Lederman, Carol E. Lee and Kristen Welker
WASHINGTON — Fiona Hill, who was until recently President Donald Trump’s top aide on Russia and Europe, plans to tell Congress that Rudy Giuliani and E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland circumvented the National Security Council and the normal White House process to pursue a shadow policy on Ukraine, a person familiar with her expected testimony told NBC News.
Hill’s appearance next week before Congress has stoked fear among people close to the president, said a former senior White House official, given her central role overseeing Russia and Ukraine policy throughout most of the Trump administration.
Her plans to testify also pose a key test for whether congressional committees pursuing an impeachment inquiry can obtain testimony from other former officials who have left the administration, given the possibility that the White House may try to assert executive privilege to stop them from testifying.
Hill plans to say that Giuliani and Sondland side-stepped the proper process for accessing Trump on Ukraine issues, the person familiar with her expected testimony said, including circumventing John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser until Septembe
Huh. What’s the big deal?
“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich”
– Peter Schweizer
How did the immutably ineligible Obongo get so wealthy having never had a job or business?
Black Magic
Cindy Bragg – you said, I didn’t. 😉
Paul C…….He couldn’t hepp himself…He was in its spell, that it wove so well……😎
Same way as Newt Gingrich, he wrote books, except he didn’t fake a Presidential campaign around a book tour.
No, he didn’t fake a presidential campaign around a book tour. That was real, like his cocaine, not fake.
Spealing of fake…….are you ever going to reveal your true ethnicity? Or gettin’ too much mileage out of your current
scam?
I totally understand.
Newt (and his wife) certainly did run a book tour disguised as a campaign. You’re really going to stay on that ridiculous fake ethnicity line? Maybe you’ll be like Trump? Repeat a lie often enough and your base will believe it.
Nice try; however, Goebbels plays for your team, not mine.
I know sometimes it’s “opposite day” there on Fantasy Island and it gets confusing.
But, good to know that I still get under your skin, which is what color exactly………..???🤣
It doesn’t get under my skin. I confess to being confused by the utter absurdity of your claim. There are people here I have respect for their intelligence and regard as smart (possibly misguided). There are those incapable of generating an independent thought, only repeating what they’ve heard from right wing news sources. Then there’s you? I’ll write it off to Mysterium Tremendum and go about my day.
Lighten up, “enigma”, or whoever is writing copy for you…
You couldn’t take a joke if I told you it was free.
Try to enjoy life……!
No one accuses Cindy of being ghosted. What would be the point?
“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over…”
Sloppy Joe just can’t quit being Sloppy Joe , his rogue sloppy US intel Friends & what should JT being addressing that he isn’t, well, it’s pretty easy if one just pays attention & looks around in the real world outside the DC bubble.
Maybe rename the blog, The Red Herring. After all we wouldn’t want to piss off the American Hating Commie/Nazis. LOL;)
BTW: Plan Parenthood is have a charity fund raiser at the end of the month in all major US cities, everyone is welcome & that’s free to all. Free BBQ, Baby Back Ribs, Wings, Thighs etc… & all the Bloody Mary’s you can drink! They’ve got plenty.
Oh, Democrat fundraisers are usually fun until a feminist shows up. I have been to plenty. I go early and greet my cronies and grab a little food, but when the pantsuits arrive, I head out the door.
Kurtz,
I’m not sure if my comments about Plan Parenthood were sarcasm as I meant it or not? I know PP has been caught selling aborted fetuses organs/etc… before they were killed… Per a recent Dr’s testimony in a Fed court in San Fran, re; under cover video/videos.
Now among the others I see a news feed I follow this morning that the headline paragraph calms another Dr is found with dead baby body parts in the trunk of his car.
It just made me think about auto savages, that if PP Dr’s can’t sell all the baby body parts for big money, & they are evil, what do they do? Well of course offer free BBQ Baby Back Ribs at a charity fund raiser for Satan.
Too early to decide.
Defendant Parnas Has Known Giuliani For Years
Both Defendants Plotted To Remove U.S. Ambassador To Ukraine
Two associates of the president’s private lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who helped fund efforts to investigate one of President Trump’s political rivals, were charged with violating campaign finance laws in a new criminal case that touched on their work in Ukraine and alleged financial ties to Russia.
The F.B.I. arrested the two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are also important witnesses in the House’s impeachment inquiry, as they were trying to board a Frankfurt-bound flight with one-way tickets on Wednesday night at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
The four-count indictment came as Mr. Trump continued to defend his pressure campaign, in which Mr. Giuliani figured prominently, to get Ukraine’s government to open investigations that could benefit him politically. Their effort is already the subject of an impeachment inquiry, and the new indictments suggest the first criminal implications of the shadow foreign policy being pushed by Mr. Giuliani on behalf of the president.
“This investigation is about corrupt behavior — deliberate lawbreaking,” said William F. Sweeney Jr., the top agent in the F.B.I.’s New York office.
The indictment connected Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman to an effort to remove the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, from her post. Ms. Yovanovitch was recalled last spring after coming under criticism from many allies of Mr. Trump. House Democrats are looking into whether her removal was linked to Mr. Trump’s efforts to gain politically helpful information in Ukraine.
Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman have acted as emissaries in Ukraine for Mr. Giuliani as he has sought to uncover information about, and encourage investigations into, Mr. Trump’s rivals, including Mr. Biden.
Mr. Parnas, who has known Mr. Giuliani for years, worked with Mr. Fruman to connect Mr. Giuliani to Ukrainian prosecutors who provided information to Mr. Giuliani, as The New York Times revealed in May.
Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman are based in South Florida, and are executives of an energy company that donated $325,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC last year, prompting a Federal Election Commission complaint by a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog accusing the men and the company of violating campaign finance laws. According to the indictment, not long before the large donation, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman created a limited liability company called Global Energy Products, which they used to funnel large contributions.
Last month, Mr. Giuliani sought to minimize the significance of the campaign finance inquiry into the two men and said it was resolved. And on Thursday, he questioned the timing of the indictment. “All I can tell you about this arrest is, it comes at a very suspicious time,” he said.
Mr. Parnas’s and Mr. Fruman’s lawyer, John M. Dowd, who previously represented Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s inquiry, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Edited from: “2 Giuliani Associates Tied To Ukraine Scandal Arrested On Campaign Finance Charge”
Today’s New York Times
What is the actual point of a law professor posting this on his legal blog? Is Turley part of the smear Trump campaign?
May be to annoy you?
Foxtrot, the answer to your question is ‘in’ your question: Professor Turley hosts a ‘legal’ blog.
It’s just what one would expect from old Foxtrot.
No .. He is part of the “Lets Save the Constitution” campaign
Trump’s lawyer, Giuliani, seems to be doing a good enough job smearing Trump all by himself…
I only took (2) law classes in college so spot me a mulligan here but, wasn’t Mueller and his team/thugs suppose to find stuff like this?
Jeff……👍
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Why stop with one of those little suckers!
To the person who “liked” the comment, it was heavy with sarcasm…, just in case you want to retract your approval.
Pretty sure Mueller repeatedly referenced how his scope was narrow (likely increasingly more so once Barr stepped in) and limited to whether Trump conspired with Russia beyond a shadow of a doubt in the 2016 election and whether he committed obstruction. These guys trying to help him steal reelection will therefore be out of scope.
No. Their scope was limited to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Reading a newspaper would have taught you that and law school has nothing to do with it.
Spot me a mulligan since I only took 2 law courses in college but, why weren’t these perps arrested by Mueller and his thugs, I mean investigation team…
And the Director of the Feminazi Gaystapo, Obergruppenfuhrer Andrew Wei-SS-mann, executed a pre-dawn raid of Public Enemy No. 1, Paul Manafort’s domicile while he and his wife were sleeping because of the threat of the funded and dangerous Manafort going out in public and purchasing some expensive loafers or ordering some wine and brie.
Both Soviet-born US citizens living in Florida, Parnas and Fruman had a history of shady financial dealings but were little known in political circles. That suddenly changed in 2018 due to the political contributions they have now been criminally charged for.
Specifically, Parnas and Fruman gave $325,000 to America First Action, a super PAC formed to help Republicans in the 2018 midterms with the backing of Trump’s team. They then visited the White House and Mar-a-Lago and got face time with top Republicans like President Trump himself and his son Don Jr. — as Parnas happily documented on social media.
Here’s the 2 Mar-A-Lago sleaze bags who were part of Rudy and Perry’s Ukraine gas take over attempt. At the end we learn they were part of the removal of the experienced US Ambassaodr to the Ukraine which was obviously an attempt to get her out of the way of the hanky panky which followed. Stay tuned!
From today’s WaPo.:
“Two associates of President Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani have been arrested on charges they schemed to funnel foreign money to U.S. politicians while trying to affect U.S.-Ukraine relations, according to a newly unsealed indictment.
The two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who had been helping Giuliani investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden, were arrested Wednesday evening at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., where they had one-way tickets on a flight out of the country, officials said.
Read the indictment: U.S. vs Lev Parnas et al
The pair have been under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. At an initial court appearance Thursday afternoon in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors said they were concerned Parnas and Fruman were flight risks, but that they would negotiate with their lawyers about a possible bail package…..
The Justice Department charges that Parnas and Fruman disguised the source of a $325,000 donation made in 2018 to America First, the main pro-Trump super PAC, by giving the money in the name of Global Energy Producers (GEP), a purported liquid natural gas company they controlled. Federal prosecutors say the company was, in essence, a front used to disguise the real source of the funds. The money for the political action committee actually came from “a private lending transaction between Fruman and third parties,” according to the indictment, which does not offer any further detail about the source of the money, and does not publicly identify America First as the recipient…..
According to the indictment unsealed in New York, Parnas, Fruman and other defendants “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 the candidates, campaigns, and the candidates’ governments.”
In May, Giuliani tweeted that Parnas and Fruman were his “clients.” He told The Post recently that the relationship involved payment to his firm but said it was not connected to his work involving Biden. Giuliani said they wanted advice for a business venture developing “security technology” and that his work was done on behalf of the two men and other investors, whom Giuliani would not name. “They wanted my advice so I gave it to them and my staff wrote the report and delivered it to them and that was concluded pretty much,” he said.
Prosecutors say Fruman and Parnas schemed to donate money to an unidentified U.S. congressman, at the same time they were asking that congressman to get the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine removed from her job.
In the spring of 2018, Parnas met with the congressman seeking his “assistance in causing the U.S. government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine,” the indictment alleges. “Parnas’s efforts to remove the Ambassador were conducted, at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.””
So what if Giuliani represented them. Lawyers represent a lot of people. People related to people. Give advice about following the law and what’s involved in it. You can’t start charging lawyers for telling people what the law is that is the cornerstone of any orderly justice system.
Here’s the thing about being a lawyer. You can give advice to clients but you dont’ CONTROL them. they can go out and break the law anyhow. That is not your fault as a lawyer.
Not that some social pressure outfits don’t regularly seek to embarrass and discourage lawyers from representing those they believe are undesirables. Because lawyers can be powerful advocates. Remember, In the old days we are told that lawyers were discouraged from representing black folks down South, communists, homosexuals, etc. Today it seems the “prohibited clients” are supposed to be Russians, racists, heterosexual men, etc.
Now the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak!
Sure Kurtz, if Guliani only represented them. Both JT and the WaPO list them as “associates” who helped Rudy in his several Ukrainian ventures. They were both part of the long AP article I posted a few days ago about Perry and Guliani trying to take over the Ukraine’s gas market.
A simple workaround to avoid these types of criminal and civil liabilities is to not give money to politicians.
Great point!
FUN FACT:
That’s precisely what the Founders did; withhold money (which they spend to buy votes) from politicians by way of the Constitution.
Congress has no power to tax for individual welfare, only “…general Welfare…” and Congress has no power to regulate anything other than “money” and “…commerce among the several States.” And the absolute right to possess and dispose of private property precludes rent control, affirmative action, quotas, fair housing laws, non-discrimination laws, etc. All the redistributionist and social engineering departments and agencies of the government are unconstitutional. The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional and money may not be spent on it by politicians.
Government exists in the Constitution solely to facilitate the freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure.
___________
Article 1, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
You ought to recall that one of the more recent criminal prosecutions of someone for violations of campaign finance law was the very irregular and quite vicious campaign against Dinesh D’Souza. I’m sure it had nothing to do with his political affiliation.
I was in the same College class with D’Souza. I knew him then. He has remained constant to the promise of his youth- if that is any satisfaction to him…