Tag Archives: Lev Parnas

national news

‘I don’t know the guy’

All righty. Let’s see how this goes.

Lev Parnas, a Ukraine-born friend of Rudy Giuliani — one of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers — has become a key player in the impeachment trial of the president of the United States.

Parnas says Vice President Mike Pence was in the loop on the favor that Trump sought from Ukraine, when Trump asked Ukraine to produce some dirt on Joe Biden, a possible opponent of the president in the 2020 campaign.

Pence said “I don’t know the guy” when asked to comment on Parnas’ allegation.

OK, that’s Pence standing right next to Parnas — shoulder to shoulder — in the picture that accompanies this blog post. The fellow on the right is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.

This is a serious pattern within the Trump administration. Trump says he doesn’t know someone, then pictures emerge of him schmoozing with the guy he said he doesn’t know.

Now it’s the VP’s turn to produce the question: Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?

national news

GAO and Parnas add to Trump saga? Not likely

Under normal circumstances that involve a “normal” president of the United States, one would think that the emergence of a key witness and a government report suggesting law-breaking would be a deal breaker, that they would ring the death knell on an embattled presidency.

This isn’t normal. None of it is normal.

Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born associate of Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has come forth with information that says Trump was in the whole matter involving the issues that resulted in Trump’s impeachment. Oh, and now we hear from the General Accounting Office that Trump broke the law while withholding military aid from Ukraine while shaking down that government for a personal political favor.

The Senate trial officially commenced today amid pomp and circumstance.  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts took his oath and sat in the Senate’s presiding officer chair and then administered the oath to the 100 senators who will conduct a trial of Donald Trump.

The GAO watchdog report says categorically that the Office of Management and Budget violated federal policy by withholding military aid that Congress had appropriated. OMB was acting on orders from Donald Trump. Therefore, Trump broke the law!

That, as has been said, is a “big fu****g deal.”

Oh, and Parnas? He has revealed that, yep, he and Trump know each other. He contradicts Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t know Parnas. And who is this guy? He is a friend of Giuliani and has been part of the inner circle involved in the effort to get Ukraine to announce plans to investigate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son Hunter’s work with an Ukrainian energy company.

Parnas also has contended that Trump’s concern about “corruption” only centered on Joe and Hunter Biden and that the president had no interest in corruption, per se, as an issue worth tackling.

My head is swirling. Will any of this matter to Republicans who comprise most of the senators who will decide whether Trump stays in office? Probably not.

Therein lies the extreme frustration that is likely to consume many of us watching this trial unfold from afar.