Reprinted with permission from Alternet
Lev Parnas, a longtime associate of Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, is causing “concern” among White House officials after he publicly turned on the president and claimed “Trump knew exactly everything that was going on that Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine.”
Parnas, who has been cooperating with the House Intelligence Committee and handed over a “trove” of impeachment documents last week, was integral to Giuliani’s efforts to pressure a Ukrainian investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
While some senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), have downplayed the relevance of Giuliani and Parnas’ efforts in Ukraine as they pertain to Trump’s impeachment, CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang on Sunday said there’s “a recognition among sources who are being honest that even if [Parnas is] not an official witness, he’s already impacting this trial.”
“Unless senators are completely tuned out, they are absorbing what he is saying and they are seeing what he is dropping in these document dumps,” Jiang said on CBS “Face the Nation.”
“So, even though the president insists that he has no idea who Parnas is, the problem is Parnas has receipts,” she said.
“And selfies!” Host Margaret Brennan noted.
“Exactly!” Jiang replied. “Not one, not two, but a whole collection that tell a story of two men that know each other over the course of years. So the president has to add to his defense, he can’t just say, ‘I don’t know who he is.’”
Watch the video below, via CBS:
.@Weijia says there’s some concern inside the White House about the impact Lev Parnas might have on the Senate #ImpeachmentTrial. "The problem is Parnas has receipts." pic.twitter.com/PmPmM3YREB
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 19, 2020
Photo credit: Ruperto Miller
