Democrats in the US House of Representatives have released a trove of documents they obtained from Lev Parnas, a close associate of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, including a handwritten note that mentions asking Ukraine’s president to investigate “the [former US vice president Joe] Biden case.”
The documents, obtained as part of the impeachment investigation into Trump, show Parnas communicating with Giuliani before the removal of Marie Yovanovitch, who was the US ambassador to Ukraine.
A man named Robert Hyde disparaged Yovanovitch in messages to Parnas, and gave him updates on her location and cellphone use, raising questions about possible surveillance.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Democrats released the files on Tuesday as they prepared to send articles of impeachment to the US Senate for Trump’s trial.
The documents add new context to their charges that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Democrats as he withheld military aid.
Parnas was in frequent communication with Giuliani and with Ukrainian officials, the messages show.
He appeared to be pushing unsubstantiated allegations that Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, were somehow engaged in corruption in Ukraine.
Among the documents is a screenshot of a previously undisclosed letter from Giuliani to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dated May 10 last year, which was before Zelenskiy took office.
In the letter, Giuliani requests a meeting with Zelenskiy “as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent.”
In the letter, Giuliani said he would be accompanied at the meeting by Victoria Toensing, a Washington attorney and Trump ally.
One of the documents is a handwritten note on stationery from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Vienna that says “get Zalensky to Annonce [sic] that the Biden case will be Investigated.”
Trump asked Zelenskiy in a July last year telephone call to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden served on the board of a gas company based in Ukraine.
Democrats said that Parnas’ attorney confirmed that Parnas wrote the notes.
The documents — including phone records, texts and flash drives turned over by Parnas — were sent to the House Judiciary Committee by three other House panels “to be included as part of the official record that will be transmitted to the Senate along with the Articles of Impeachment,” a statement said.
Some of the materials were made public, while others were marked as sensitive.
Parnas and his business partner, Igor Fruman, both US citizens who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, were indicted last year on charges of conspiracy, making false statements and falsification of records.
Prosecutors have alleged that they made outsize campaign donations to Republican causes after receiving millions of US dollars originating from Russia. The men have pleaded not guilty.
In several of the documents, Parnas communicated with Giuliani about the removal of Yovanovitch.
The ambassador’s ouster, ordered by Trump, was at the center of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
Yovanovitch testified in the impeachment hearings that she was the victim of a “smear campaign.”
Trump on a July 25 call had promised Zelenskiy that Yovanovitch was “going to go through some things.”
About two months earlier, she was recalled from her diplomatic post.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including