Lev Parnas Alleges Bill Barr Offered Dmitry Firtash Legal Relief if He “Played Ball”

/75 Comments/in /by

Watching the latest James Comer hearing — in which two convicted fraudsters and someone who claims everything the FBI said he told them is false — is like sticking hot needles in my eyes.

To be fair, Tony Bobulinski has successfully filibustered Democratic questions. Though when Alexandra Ocasio Cortez asked him if he witnessed Joe Biden committing a crime, Bobulinski said that by meeting with Bobulinski, Biden was committing a crime.

Hopefully, Democrats will force Bobulinski to retract all the hearsay he has been peddling.

The only new claims in the hearing came from Lev Parnas.

He described some of what happened between Victoria Toensing and Bill Barr in 2019.

Ro Khanna: Did Bill Barr know that you were involved in getting this dirt?

Parnas: Absolutely. Bill, Bill Barr was informed of our investigation from the day he took office.

Khanna: Did you ever have a conversation with Bill Barr being lenient towards Dmitry, in Bill Barr’s role as Attorney General?

Parnas: I personally did not but I was witness to Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova, having a conversation with Bill Barr about Dmitry Firtash.

Khanna: What did they say to Bill Barr?

Parnas: Basically, they were telling him that the charges were false, and that he needs to drop the charges and, basically, end the case.

Khanna: And why did they tell him to drop the charges on this Russian [sic] oligarch?

Parnas: Because Dmitry Firtash was going to help us getting dirt on the Bidens, or whatever else the Trump campaign needed.

Khanna: So my understanding is you have the Trump campaign telling you to talk to a Russian [sic] oligarch to get dirt, on the President of the United States for political reasons, and then someone from the Trump campaign is talking to the Attorney General to drop the charges because this foreign national is helping get dirt on a political candidate?

Parnas: Absolutely.

He claimed that after Toensing had met with Barr, Rudy told him that Firtash would be okay if he played ball.

Parnas also claimed that his attorney reached out to Scott Brady in 2020, but got no response.

Remember that Brady looked into investigations into all the oligarchs from whom Rudy had been soliciting dirt in 2020, including Firtash, as well as Igor Kolomoisky. A reported investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky had been shut down by then — around the same time as Barr’s Chief of Staff sent him a text, the day after FBI obtained a warrant for Hunter Biden’s laptop, telling him a laptop was on the way.

Parnas repeated his past claims that Barr had him, and only him, arrested to shut him up. He also said that bank documents John Solomon shared with him had come from the FBI.

Update: Fixed honorary Irish spelling of AOC’s name.

image_print
75 replies
  2. Matt Foley says:

    Suggestion: instead of watching live watch replay at faster playback speed. Won’t be less painful but the pain won’t last as long.

      • Ithaqua0 says:

        Impeachment, impeachment time is near
        Time for Smirnov, Luft ain’t here,
        We’ve really sucked, and we can’t last
        Hurry impeachment, hurry fast
        Want a witness that tells the “truth”?
        Let’s hire Rudy as the sleuth!
        We can hardly stand the wait
        Please, impeachment, don’t be late

        (from The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late))

  4. RipNoLonger says:

    Hate to see Toensing and DiGenova enjoying wallowing in the mud. Used to be (may still be) Vermont-based lawyers. We do have a good contingent of very RW legal folks up heah.

    • ernesto1581 says:

      I don’t think they ever fit the mold of a New England Republican, though. Son Brady has been back in the state since leaving the Trump admin, advocating on behalf of bump stocks and qualified immunity, against a 72-hour waiting period on arms purchase. Although ten years ago, he rightly went after an AG who was instrumental in hiding state actors involved in the $200 million EB-5 scandal in the Northeast Kingdom.
      Meanwhile, the moribund VT GOP has balkanized itself into two mutually antagonistic (cannibalistic?) camps as the crazies try to expel the few remaining moderates, especially the Republican governor, Phil Scott, who did not vote for Trump either time.

  5. ExRacerX says:

    That went well for the Impeachment Committee, didn’t it?

    In a sane world, at this point they’d surely punt on this silly impeachment effort, but in this one, they’ll continue trying to hammer the big square peg into the little round hole.

    • Rugger_9 says:

      If impeachment followed by conviction were the goal, I’d agree. However, the Comer Clown Committee leadership is doing this to provide red herrings to distract the rubes away from inconvenient facts regarding Defendant-1. Like SC Weiss, they know their master Defendant-1 wants these tasks done, and FWIW I suspect the Comer Clown Committee leadership is well aware they’re suspects in addition to being attack dogs so they also have to save their own skins.

      Thus, when Parnas made it clear there was nothing to see about HB but plenty about Rudy the whole foundation finished its disintegration. Bonus points for Gym Jordan shutting down the subpoena of Jared Kushner about his 2 B$ ‘investment’ from MBS at an influence peddling hearing.

      However, it will get harder and harder to hide all of these, and IMHO when Monday rolls around with Leticia James padlocking Trump Tower (because Defendant-1 couldn’t post the bond) I think the GOP stops much of this idiocy to scramble to save their own skins. At that point, the boss can’t help them any more and FWIW had also pretty much looted the RNC.

      • RitaRita says:

        Rep. Comer and his friends aren’t interested in anything other than getting sound bites and doing what Trump wants them to do: hold a hearing, make allegations that can be used by Fox and the right wing media. For them, this hearing is “Mission Accomplished”..

        DOJ isn’t going to do anything with Parnas’ testimony. His credibility is questionable and people like Pete Sessions can hide behind Congressional privileges.

        Letitia James isn’t going to padlock Trump Tower on Monday. If she is not stopped by state or federal court, her first act will be to record judgment liens. This will “padlock the doors” against future lenders and creditors and give her the ability to foreclose on the lien.

        • Henry Ridgeway says:

          Another thing Letitia James needs to do is take TFG’s deposition, video, and ask him about every property he owns. It might take several sessions as he “has to check his records, check with his accountant, etc.” I love the smell of perjury in the morning.

        • LadyHawke says:

          That monitor is terribly high on Trump’s white-hot hate list – the gigantic one he’s been assembling and obsessing over his entire life (above the general hate he seems to have for everyone).
          Are most of “his” properties Trump-branded? Those would probably hurt the most, while being the most over-valued.
          Is James obliged to go for the assets that will most quickly and easily net the amount required?

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Why is Manhattan lawyer Lisa Rubin treating this as if it were breaking news? FFS, all of Trump’s principal properties are mortgaged. That’s standard operating procedure in the real estate business; more so for the self-described king of debt, Donald Trump.

          The NYAG will have current details on which properties controlled by the legal entity defendants have the highest net worth, and which are likely to be easiest to sell. Odds are the NYAG would need to force the sale of more than one property to satisfy her judgment.

          She would likely target properties in her home state, and perhaps properties that will make Trump sit up and notice more than others. She would, of course, target accounts that hold liquid assets.

          All that assumes the appellate division doesn’t issue a stay without a bond, which is very unlikely.

        • xyxyxyxy says:

          Is there any consequences to his wife and son if he is unable to meet the $454 million judgement?

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          earl, you raised the salient point (as I understand it) about seizing Trump properties: they’re mortgaged to the max. He doesn’t have equity in the ones people love to talk about, or not enough to make seizing them worth James’s effort.

          I wonder about his upstate golf course(s) and that rural manse Eric claims he grew up in; did Trump keep any of these less-visible properties unmortgaged?

          But generally it seems like James is not going to have an easy time finding the money. I would love to know what that monitor knows.

        • Lake Cities says:

          Is there an advantage to making Trump homeless again and forcing him to move all his boxes in plain view? When you hear about the hidden tunnels in Palm Beach, can they focus on the properties that have represented the greatest risk to US secrets?

        • SteveBev says:

          The tldr:

          Trump International Hotel and Tower, 1 Central Park West — Trump owns the service areas

          Trump Tower, 725 Fifth Avenue — TrumpOrg owns retail and commercial portions; Trump owns a triplex apartment

          The Trump Building (40 Wall Street), 40 Wall Street — Trump owns the ground lease

          1290 Avenue of the Americas, 1290 Sixth Avenue — Trump owns a 30 percent

          Trump Park Avenue, 502 Park Avenue — Trump may own some units

          Niketown, 4–8 East 57th Street — Trump owns the ground lease.

          Trump Parc and Trump Parc East, 100–106 Central Park South — Trump may own some units.

          Trump Plaza, 167 East 61st Street — Trump may own some units.

          Trump World Tower, 845 United Nations Plaza — Trump doesn’t own it.

          The Mayfair, 610 Park Avenue — Trump never owned it

          200 East 69th Street (formerly known as Trump Palace), 200 East 69th Street — Trump doesn’t own it.

          140, 160, 180, 200, 220, and 240 Riverside Boulevard (formerly known as Trump Place), 140, 160, 180, 200, 220, and 240 Riverside Boulevard — Trump doesn’t own it.

          The Dominick Hotel (formerly known as Trump SoHo), 246 Spring Street — Trump never owned it.

          Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, 500 Hutchinson River Parkway — Trump never owned it

          [Moderator’s note: reformatted to reduce the length of this comment. Remember a substantive number of readers use mobile devices. /~Rayne]

        • RitaRita says:

          Licenses to use the Trump name would be intangible personal property assets. Not sure what steps NY Law requires for foreclosing on those assets (basically requiring any ongoing stream of payments be redirected to NY State) but presumably far easier and quicker than foreclosing on real estate. Ditto for accounts receivables from property services agreements.

        • Rayne says:

          I am still resisting the urge to completely remove your comment because your tl;dr effort here is at the limit of Fair Use. The entire point of Curbed’s article was to provide a list of Trump’s NYC real estate holdings and you’ve now reduced the chances people will clickthrough to their work for which they should be compensated.

        • Rayne says:

          In a disagreement between commercial outlets about 40 Wall Street, I’ll defer to a description by NYS AG:

          40 Wall Street, New York, NY
          The Trump Organization owns a ground lease at 40 Wall Street, meaning it holds a leasehold interest in the land and buildings on the land, but pays rent to the owner. The Trump Organization received a bank-ordered appraisal for the commercial property at 40 Wall Street that calculated a value for the property of $220 million as of November 1, 2012. Yet in the statement that year and the next year (2013), 40 Wall Street was valued at $527 million and $530 million — more than twice the value calculated by the independent, professional appraisers. Even more egregiously, those increased valuations were attributed to information obtained from the same professional appraiser who valued the building at just over $200 million.

          In 2015, the Trump Organization replaced an existing Capital One loan on the building with a loan from Ladder Capital Finance (working with Mr. Weisselberg’s son, a director there). The Ladder loan was approved based in part on an inflated appraisal prepared by Cushman & Wakefield. Ultimately, the final appraisal for the loan came to a valuation of $540 million through a number of unreasonable adjustments, including reducing costs and changing the assumptions concerning the ground lease. Not even this increase was enough for Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization. The 2015 statement, which was compiled in June of that year, valued the building at $735.4 million — over 35% higher than the already inflated $540 million Cushman appraisal of that same date, which the Trump Organization had in hand.

      • RationalAgent19 says:

        My understanding is that trump tower is a condo, in which the residents own their apartments. trump has an apartment there – the one that he fraudulently tripled the size of, for valuation purposes. Attorney General James could seize trump’s gaudy apartment, but not anyone else’s.

        A-G James has already indicated that the first of trump’s properties to be seized will be the building at 40 Wall Street. I hope she does take trump’s condo in trump tower, and also Mar-a-Lago, and a golf course or two.

  7. Upisdown says:

    I love the contrast between Parnas meeting President Trump in the WH with Giuliani to plot foreign election interference, and Bobulinski briefly meeting private citizen Joe Biden at an LA hotel bar to talk about their family history.

    I wish the Dem who had the Parnas/Rudy/Trump photo would have asked Bobulinski if he also had a photo of his meeting with Biden.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      That’s the problem with Bobulinski “meetings.” He just never seems to have any evidence they happened.

  8. Sussex Trafalgar says:

    I’ve wondered how long it would take for the conversations between AG Bill Barr and Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova about Dmytro Firtash to become public. Today was the day.

    The Putin led organized crime syndicate has paid a lot of people to play for Team Putin Trump.

    Absolutely ghastly.

    • Zinsky123 says:

      Well said. I have been appalled by the way Billy Barr has absolutely flown under the radar when it comes to his accountability for all the crap he oversaw or overlooked during the Trump Administration. From mischaracterizing and sanitizing the Mueller Report to the misuse of DOJ assets in crushing and abducting protestors in Portland, Oregon to pushing protestors out of the way for Trump’s little upside down Bible photo op outside St. Mark’s church in DC, Barr was complicit in egregious abuses of power. He WAS smart enough to flee that wretched Administration before January 6th, which was probably the smartest thing the rat bastard did.

        • John B.*^ says:

          yep, me too…figured it was because he had a pretty good idea J6 was coming and wanted to be out before it happened…

      • xyxyxyxy says:

        It wasn’t only crushing and abducting protestors in Portland, there was also the murder of Michael Reinoehl with no police body camera footage despite multiple police agencies being at the murder scene and after “In a tweet late Thursday night, President Donald Trump demanded to know, “why aren’t the Portland Police ARRESTING the cold blooded killer of Aaron ‘Jay’ Danielson? Do your job, and do it fast. Everybody knows who this thug is. No wonder Portland is going to hell!”.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-reinoehl-suspect-portland-shooting-killed-federal-task-force/

      • Purple Martin says:

        Bill Barr found Trump as President useful in serving his own career-long obsession of converting America from a democratic representative republic, to a Theocratic Authoritarian Police State.

        Starting with his 1980’s popularization of Unitary Executive theory (as head of DoJ’s OLC) and early 1990’s defense of GHWB’s Iran-Contra pardons, and continuing today, nearly all Barr’s efforts are targeted at increasing power of the Chief Executive/Executive Branch; turning police forces and domestic intelligence agencies into paramilitary forces accountable to local, state, and federal government authoritarians; and weakening the 1st Amendment’s separation of church and state to favor his own sour strain of nationalist ultra-conservative Catholicism.

        Barr’s always held Trump and his followers in deep contempt and with election defeat ending Trump’s usefulness, hoped to retain a modicum of credibility in a post-Trump future. Thus, he decided a December 2020 public rejection of what he knew to be election fraud fantasies, would help by triggering his own firing—which he did and it did (just check out his self-lionizing book tour).

        Although he would have liked another four MAGA years to further lock-in his anti-democracy ideals, Bill Barr is likely satisfied with the advancement—through Trump-manipulation and DoJ scheming—of his holy crusade and America’s march toward theocracy.

  9. zscoreUSA says:

    Regarding Parnas and Rudy and Toensing and Solomon and Firtash, here is something I find interesting.

    4/12/19
    Throughout the day: flurry of calls between Parnas, Rudy, Toensing, Nunes, Solomon, Sekulow, OMB [Mulvaney]

    6:50pm: Hunter allegedly brings his laptops to Mac Isaac after learning about his computer repair store while at an uncharacteristic purchase at a local cigar shop

    7:00pm: Mac Isaac store closes for day

    7:45pm: Mac Isaac leaves shop after checking in Hunter’s laptop and doing initial check of device, sees Hunter still in parking lot in his expensive truck with its “fancy angles and lighting”

    7:56pm: one last phone call for the day, from 5 minute call from Rudy to the White House

    Source:
    https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/ac8c9c61-bf69-4714-a683-0a6e0a86f80b/note/05e7033d-329b-445a-bf6e-093a0d4c7c7c.pdf

  10. Rugger_9 says:

    Semi-OT (because it may involve Russians): Alina Habba refused to say whether Defendant-1 would tap foreign sources to cover his bills and bonds. I think that would be at the very least an in-kind campaign finance evolution especially when one considers how the RNC is also paying Defendant-1’s legal bills as its policy. Commingling would taint all of it.

    So, as it stands we have Manafort coming back to the campaign, and the possibility that Jared will be sending MBS’ money to help out his father-in-law. So that makes me wonder a couple of things:

    Shouldn’t Jared and Manafort be required to register as foreign agents under FARA? How is it legal that a FARA-registered agent can launder money or other aid to a US campaign at all or work for the campaign as Vlad’s minder?

  11. NAME-REMOVED_24MAR2024 says:

    Bobbulinski comes out of left field to me.
    Can you fill me in a little on this guy?

    • Reader_21 says:

      Sorry for the double-post – meant this as a reply:
      Re your first question, I’ll defer to others more expert than I, but I would certainly think they should be required to register under FARA – whether they will be (given the typical deadlocked paralysis at the FEC, combined with DOJ’s usual deference to let them have first crack, at least from what I understand) is a different matter. As to 2), I couldn’t agree more – and while I have the utmost respect for the work of Mueller and his outstanding team, i never could wrap my head around how providing valuable oppo research was not something of ‘tangible value’ – suspect they may not have worked on too many campaigns, if they were under the impression that damaging opposition research is not incredibly valuable in an American political campaign. I just don’t think law ENF will touch that one right now, unfortunately – would love to be wrong though.

      • bmaz says:

        You are a more petty moderator tyrant than I ever was. Reader_21 did not deserve that treatment, he demanded nothing.

        [I replied to Greg Wall. You’d realize this if you could follow a straight line. Reader_21 hadn’t posted his comment when I began to pull the links together for my reply to Greg. This is the kind of attack on moderation which will go into the bin in the future. /~Rayne]

        • ExRacerX says:

          Follow the dotted line down & you’ll find Rayne wasn’t responding to Reader_21 at all, but to Greg Wall.

        • Reader_21 says:

          Ah, I think the fault lies with me, I mistakenly replied to the wrong post when I meant to respond to Rugger_9 – argh! One of those days – apologies, y’all. Appreciate you.

        • NAME-REMOVED_24MAR2024 says:

          I actually did do some looking around on the subject and came up with nothing (before I asked). We mere mortals who really only know what we get on the cable shows are indeed behind the curve, and I didn’t know only Marcy could answer questions on the thread. Sorry bout that.

          [Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You have (3) published comments as “XXXX XXXX” Revert to that username by simply re-typing it into the Name field with your next comment. Future comments may not clear for publication if username does not match the original. Thanks.

          EDIT: Original username removed to protect user privacy while preserving thread continuity. /~Rayne]

        • NAME-REMOVED_24MAR2024 says:

          ** comment removed **

          [Moderator’s note: I have removed your username on all comments you have published here to date. I am not going to remove the comments because they had already had replies. FYI, this site does not share username/email/other identifying info with 3rd parties. /~Rayne]

  12. Mr Bubbles says:

    Good thing for Bill that he belongs to a class of people who are immune from criticism or prosecution.

    [Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. I’ll assume “Mr Bubbles” is the site standard compliant name you have chosen instead of “Stevo60” and “Steve Harris.” Please be sure to use the same username each time you comment; format must be the same (no period after Mr) each time. /~Rayne]

Comments are closed.