Lev Parnas Went On Maddow and Made All Kinds of Accusations About Trump, Here Are the Highlights

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, right, is seated before President Donald Trump announces Judge Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for the Supreme Court, in the East Room of the White House, Monday, July 9, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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Yesterday, I posted that Rachel Maddow was teasing an interview with former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who is also currently under indictment for unrelated crimes and is desperately searching for a way out.

There was plenty of reason to be skeptical of what he was going to say before the interview. That hasn’t changed now that he’s said it. Here are some of the highlights before we get to the myriad of facts that contradict his accusations.

Well, sure. That’s exactly why he’s coming forward and it’s exactly why everything he says, especially the more salacious claims that he provides no evidence of, should be taken with a grain of salt. Instead, Maddow chose to ask leading, orchestrated questions to elicit wild claims while never asking Parnas to actually prove any of them.

Here are the five major things Parnas alleges.

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We know that is not true because every single Ukrainian official, even those that would benefit from nailing Trump here, have said that didn’t happen. All the witnesses trotted out by Adam Schiff, who were hostile to the President, said that didn’t happen. The Ukrainian president himself says that didn’t happen. For his part, Parnas provided no evidence of the claim.

It’s possible Giuliani contacted Barr about his “theories” involving Ukraine. So what? Barr obviously didn’t act on them and we know the DOJ dismissed them. Trying to connect Barr here is just playing into the Democrat pipe dream that they can nail the Attorney General in this and it’s completely transparent what Parnas is trying to do.

Parnas’ “direct connection” to Trump isn’t actually a direct connection at all. It’s a guy under indictment trying to get a cooperation deal making a baseless accusation. Like his previous claims, Parnas provides no evidence to back up what he’s saying.

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In regards to VP Pence, we know that’s not true because Jennifer Williams, who was an Adam Schiff witness and who trashed Trump’s Ukraine machinations, said it wasn’t true. It would make no sense for her to lie about Pence while simultaneously being a witness against Trump. Further, we also know that Zelensky never “refused” to announce an investigation into the Bidens at that time. In fact, the accusation to this point by Democrats has been that Sondland had successfully gotten a commitment from Zelensky. So which is it?

The last comment is just more baseless talk trying to connect Trump from Parnas, which he provides no actual evidence of.

In respect to what Parnas is doing, he’s attempting to blame all of his misdeeds and his wider, unrelated corruption on “helping the President.” Everything was now some grand strategy coming from the White House according to him. This is Michael Cohen all over again, but the problem for Parnas is that there’s ample evidence he’s making it up. Fore example, most of Parnas claims revolve around the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former Ambassador to the Ukraine.

He claims his quest to remove her was at the behest of Trump, but that’s not what the facts say.

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What that document involves t is a previously reported connection between Parnas and a Congressman (no it’s not Devin Nunes) over a fundraising scheme that had nothing to do with Trump. What Parnas wanted at the time, prior to any connections to the White House, was for Yovanavitch to be removed. In fact, it was Parnas who first planted that idea in Trump’s head, not the other way around.

Parnas was the mastermind here, pushing stories through Giuliani in order to do his own self-bidding, which was to fulfill his longtime plan of getting Yovanovitch fired. This probably had to do with other corruption Parnas was involved in (and which he’s no under indictment for). He was so concerned with getting this done that he told the President Yovanovitch was bad-mouthing him and undermining his authority, which would obviously give the President pause about her position. In other words, Parnas is now lying by claiming the President (via Giuliani) approached him about Yovanovitch. The exact opposite happened.

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That’s further reinforced by the fact that it was Parnas and his partner who paid Giuliani to help them “investigate” things. Had Parnas just been a “bag man” doing the President’s bidding, he wouldn’t be paying people to do what is obviously his own bidding.

Parnas is a conman. He’s going to jail because he’s a conman and it hasn’t nothing to do with Trump. Bad on Giuliani for ever getting involved with such a character, but that doesn’t mean his crazy spin should now be taken as truth. Parnas was pushing his own interests, not taking orders, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that. Meanwhile, he provides no real evidence to connect any of this to Trump, Pence, or Barr. Parnas was a ringleader now trying to pretend he was just a foot soldier.

Lastly, think critically about how this is going down. This a guy desperate to make a deal with the SDNY, yet they’ve refused to entertain his nonsense while he ends up going on Maddow. That should tell you a lot about how credible all of this is. But instead of reporting these things with skepticism, which is highly warranted, the media are now running with his accusations because they feel they’ve been given the green light. There’s a reason none of the legacy outlets did this initial interview and it’s not because Parnas didn’t go to them (we know he spoke to the NYTs). It’s because they know this is mostly bunk (or at least misleading) and needed a third party, Maddow in this case, to get all this out there for them to parrot.

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Mission accomplished I guess.

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