At first blush, the charges against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two highly controversial associates of Rudy Giuliani, might make yesterday’s developments look like a campaign-finance scandal. And to a certain extent, that’s a key piece of the puzzle: the Florida businessmen stand accused of funneling very large amounts of illegal campaign contributions to various Republican politicians and political entities, including a leading super PAC allied with Donald Trump.
What’s more, according to prosecutors — who took Parnas and Fruman into custody shortly before they were prepared to take a one-way flight out of the country — the two cooked up a variety of schemes to make illegal donations to Republicans.
But this isn’t just a campaign-finance controversy, and it’s important to appreciate what else these guys were up to.
[Parnas and Fruman] were helping President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani set up meetings with high level Ukrainian officials, according to documents obtained by the State Department inspector general. Giuliani has acknowledged that he lobbied those people to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 campaign, in what Democrats say was an effort to uncover dirt on the president’s political enemies.
While the nature of the criminal charges obviously matter, yesterday’s developments are also a key ingredient to the larger impeachment crisis unfolding around Donald Trump.
It’s impossible to do this justice in a single blog post, so I’ll just encourage you to watch Rachel’s A block from last night. In the meantime, though, let’s pause to note that Parnas and Fruman may not be the only ones who’ll face charges.
Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, explicitly told reporters yesterday that his office’s investigation is “ongoing,” suggesting additional indictments may be on the way.
It was against this backdrop that CNN ran this report:
Rudy Giuliani’s financial dealings with two associates indicted on campaign finance-related charges are under scrutiny by investigators overseeing the case, law enforcement officials briefed on the matter said.









