Two business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Giuliani have been arrested on campaign finance charges
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and are expected to appear in federal court in Virginia later Thursday.
According to the indictment, 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.”
The indictment also alleges that 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.”
An attorney for the two men, John Dowd, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Parnas and Fruman have little history of political involvement but emerged suddenly in a circle of elite Trump donors after Parnas gave $50,000 to support Trump’s election in 2016, and a pro-Trump super PAC reported receiving $325,000 last year from a company the two men incorporated.
Prosecutors say Parnas and Fruman began scheming in March 2018 “to advance their personal financial interests and the political interests of at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working. To advance that scheme, they made a $325,000 contribution to an independent expenditure committee and a $15,000 to a second such committee,” according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, another man involved in the scheme was David Correia, a business partner of Parnas and Fruman who had worked with them on a liquefied natural gas company they incorporated in 2018.
Parnas made his first large political contribution in 2016, when he gave $50,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and GOP state parties, campaign finance records show.
Parnas has told The Post that he decided to get involved politically because he was a passionate supporter of Trump’s candidacy after growing up in New York and selling Trump condos in the city when Trump’s late father, Fred Trump, was still running the Trump Organization.
In May 2018, about six months before the men began working with Giuliani on his Biden investigation, a Florida business established by Parnas received a $1.26 million wire transfer from an account whose owner was represented by a real estate lawyer who specializes in assisting foreign buyers of U.S. property, court documents and corporate filings show.
Two days later, America First, the main pro-Trump super PAC, reported receiving $325,000 from a company Parnas and Fruman had incorporated the previous month called Global Energy Producers.
Last year, the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center filed a still-pending complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the donation, alleging that it appeared to be a straw donation that masked the identity of the original contributor.
Parnas told the Miami Herald last week that the money for the super PAC donation was from proceeds from the sale of a Miami-area condominium. Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for the super PAC, has declined to comment on “ongoing legal matters.”
“I can tell you that we scrupulously adhere to all laws and regulations,” she said.
The real estate lawyer involved in the transfer, Russell S. Jacobs, did not respond to requests for comment.
House committees have asked Parnas and Fruman to turn over all documents and communications related to the donations and have sought depositions from both men.
Since late 2018, the two Florida-based business executives have been assisting Giuliani’s push to get Ukrainian officials to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as Giuliani’s claim that Democrats conspired with Ukrainians in the 2016 campaign. They have also been pursuing opportunities in Ukraine for a new liquefied natural gas venture.
Parnas, a 47-year-old former stockbroker who was born in Ukraine, has told The Washington Post that Giuliani is an attorney for the two men but declined to say what services he is providing them.
Parnas said he and Fruman helped set up a Skype call for Giuliani in late 2018 with Viktor Shokin, the ousted prosecutor general, and an in-person meeting in New York in January 2019 with Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
