Impeachment trial: Lev Parnas, the man who idolized Trump before accusing him

Donald Trump would have done well with these statements. In an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, Lev Parnas, a businessman of Ukrainian descent, associated with the personal lawyer of the American president, affirmed that the latter knew all about the efforts which he had carried out with the Ukrainian authorities to compromise Joe Biden, former Democratic vice president and presidential candidate 2020.

"President Trump knew exactly what was going on, he was aware of my movements, I did nothing without the consent of Mr. Giuliani [Donald Trump's personal lawyer, editor's note] or the president," said the man.

"We weren't friends [...] but he knew exactly who we were and especially who I was because I interacted with him many times." He said on MSNBC, by certifying that the tenant of the White House "had lied" by affirming not to know him.

The proceedings for the impeachment trial against the American president will be held from next Tuesday. Donald Trump faces two counts: abuse of power and obstructing the work of Congress. He is accused of having lobbied to convince Ukraine to open an investigation into Joe Biden, his potential rival in the presidential election next November.

>> Read also: Donald Trump’s removal procedure: the Senate comes into play

From Odessa to Florida

Within a few months, Lev Parnas became one of the central figures in this dismissal procedure. Nothing, however, predestined the 47-year-old to find himself at the heart of this historic trial. Born in 1972 under the Soviet Union in Odessa, Ukraine, he left his country of origin at the age of 3. His family moved to Detroit, Michigan, then to Brooklyn. As the New York Times recounts, he grew up in a modest home: "His father died when he was 11 years old and his mother worked in a beauty salon. He left school at the age of 15."

The young Parnas then became a real estate agent then a stockbroker, before settling at the age of 23 in Florida. "For two decades, he created or worked for at least 20 companies," continues the New York Times. In 2012, he founded with David Correai, a former professional golfer, a start-up called "Fraud Guarantee" which aims to "offer insurance to investors against scams. But according to the Wall Street Journal, he himself has a heavy history of debts and judgments against him. Quoted by the Miami Herald, the wife of one of his clients who is suing for $ 500,000, said "he had ruined them financially".

At the time, he carried out dubious business, but he was not yet interested in politics until Donald Trump, of which he is an unconditional fan, ran for the American presidency. With his partner Igor Fruman, originally from Belarus, they begin to raise funds for the campaign of elected republicans in local and federal elections. They are even present at the Donald Trump nomination.

In 2018, Lev Parnas got a little closer to the clan of the White House tenant by calling, still with his partner, the services of Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal lawyer and former mayor of New York, for legal advice. This new relationship then takes a particular turn. The two men allegedly helped Giuliani to meet Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukrainian attorney general, in an attempt to convince him to open an investigation into the cases of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, in Ukraine. During a telephone exchange in July 2019, Donald Trump had asked his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to "look into" this file and to get in touch with Rudy Giuliani.

"Because of my Ukrainian origins and my contacts there, I became assistant to Rudy, his investigator. I don't do anything on my own. I don't lobby. I get information. J "arrange meetings," Lev Parnas told The New Yorker magazine.

Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas also allegedly worked to dismiss the American ambassador to Kiev, Marie Yovanovitch, who was deemed anti-Trump. Messages exchanged between Lev Parnas and a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, Robert Hyde, thus suggest that the latter was communicating with people in Ukraine who were monitoring the whereabouts of the ambassador, who was finally dismissed last year.

Donald Trump who says he doesn't know or have spoken with Lev Parnas ... he just took pictures with him ... he says. pic.twitter.com/hdT2LXCtYD

He sees Trump as "a savior"

Lev Parnas and his friend were finally arrested on October 9 by the FBI, while they were preparing to leave the United States. They are accused of having concealed the foreign origin of certain donations made in 2018 to electoral campaigns, in particular the origin of $ 325,000 paid for the re-election campaign of Donald Trump in May 2018. The businessman d he Ukrainian origin was already in the crosshairs of the Democrats of Congress who had summoned him to testify. His name had returned to the investigation into Donald Trump's controversial phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Asked about him, Donald Trump denies having had any links with him. "I do not know him, I do not believe I have already spoken to him," the US President repeated again on Thursday, January 16, acknowledging that photos had nevertheless been taken of the two men.

Now ready to cooperate with investigators, Lev Parnas told the New York Times "regret having trusted too much" Rudy Giuliani and the President. "I thought I was acting as a patriot and helping the president," he added. The entrepreneur therefore decided to speak, visibly annoyed to have been let go by his mentor. "I loved him," he said according to CNN. "When the FBI came to search my house, my wife felt embarrassed because they said that I had some sort of small mausoleum in his honor. I had lots of pictures of him. I was idolizing him. I thought that he was the savior. " Now a US citizen, he has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, for which he faces 20 years in prison.

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