Five takeaways from Parnas’s Maddow interview

Rudy Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas revealed new accusations against President Trump and his administration in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Wednesday night. 

A day after the House published evidence provided by Parnas for the Senate impeachment trial, Parnas unveiled his take on what has been going on behind the scenes with the White House’s Ukraine policy.

Giuliani’s associate connected Trump directly to the controversy and pressure campaign in Ukraine to get the country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Parnas, who was indicted for and pleaded not guilty to campaign law violations last year, is reportedly looking for ways to work with the prosecutors in his case, who are seeking more details on Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine.

Here are some of the accusations that Parnas made: 

1. He claimed Trump threatened to withhold more than just military aid from Ukraine

Parnas claimed that the president threatened to withhold all aid from Ukraine if it did not publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens, and he delivered that “very harsh message” to Ukrainian officials on behalf of Giuliani and Trump.

{mosads}“The message was: It wasn’t just military aid. It was all aid,” he said. “Basically the relationship would be sour. We would stop giving them any kind of aid.”

The associate to the president’s personal attorney said the aid was clearly contingent on U.S. demands, primarily an investigation into the Bidens. Parnas’s claims counter what Trump has said, which is that there was no explicit quid pro quo between him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Lev Parnas, associate of @rudygiuliani, said that, on behalf of Rudy and @realDonaldTrump, he gave “a very harsh message” that “all aid” would be withheld if there was no Biden investigation. pic.twitter.com/7xaqIyYeDG

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 16, 2020

2. He implicated Attorney General Barr, saying he “had to have known everything”

Parnas continued by connecting Attorney General William Barr to the pressure campaign, saying that Giuliani had contacted the attorney general about the attempts to get Ukraine to announce a Biden investigation 

“Barr had to have known everything,” he said. “Attorney General Barr was basically on the team.” 

A Justice Department spokesperson told Maddow that the claim was “100 percent false.” The spokesperson repeated the same statement to The Hill.

.@Maddow: “[Was Giuliani] ever in contact with [Barr]…about the fact that he was trying to get Ukraine to announce these investigations into [Biden]?”

PARNAS: “Absolutely.”

Q: “Barr knew about it?”

PARNAS: “Barr had to have known everything…Barr was basically on the team.” pic.twitter.com/3egdPj5e6T

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) January 16, 2020

3. “Trump knew exactly what was going on”

Parnas also directly connected Trump to the Ukraine pressure campaign to investigate the Bidens, saying the president “knew exactly what was going on.”

Maddow asked Parnas about that “main inaccuracy or the main lie being told” that he felt he could correct.

He responded: “That the president didn’t know what was going on. President Trump knew exactly what was going on.”

Parnas continued, saying that he would not act without “the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president” and added that Trump’s claim that he doesn’t know Parnas is a lie.

“He lied,” Parnas says of President Trump’s denial that he knows him. “He knew exactly who we were. He knew exactly who I was especially because I interacted with him at a lot of events… I was with Rudy when he would speak to the president — plenty of times.” pic.twitter.com/Y3D51xtSTi

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 16, 2020

4. He alleged Pence skipped Zelensky’s inauguration because of Ukraine pressure campaign

Parnas accused Vice President Pence of being in the know, adding that the vice president’s planned trip to Zelensky’s inauguration was canceled because the country refused to announce a Biden investigation.

“Oh, I know 100 percent,” Parnas said. “It was 100 percent.”

When Maddow asked if the vice president knew his visit was involved in a “quid pro quo,” Parnas quoted U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s comments during the impeachment inquiry: “Everybody was in the loop.”

Marc Short, the chief of staff for Pence’s office, said in a statement to The Hill that Democrats have contradicted Parnas’s statements from his interviews when testifying under oath.

“This is very simple: Lev Parnas is under a multi-count indictment and will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison,” Short said. “It’s no surprise that only the liberal media is listening to him.”

.@Maddow: “[Pence] has his planned trip to the inauguration canceled after you were unable to get the Ukrainian government to commit to announcing investigations into [Biden]. Do you know if [Pence] was aware that that was the quid pro quo?”

PARNAS: “Everybody was in the loop.” pic.twitter.com/bb6dSJEu7b

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) January 16, 2020

5. He asserted that the Ukraine campaign “was never about corruption [but] strictly about Burisma”

Giuliani’s associate also claimed that the White House’s call for a Ukrainian investigation “was never about corruption.” Instead, it was focused solely on Burisma.

“And that was another thing that they were looking into, but it was never about corruption,” Parnas said. “It was never — it was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.”

Parnas’s assertion negates the White House’s claims that the administration was attempting to root out corruption when Trump asked Zelensky to examine the Bidens’ past.

Giuliani associate Lev Parnas tells @Maddow: “It was never about corruption. It was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.” https://t.co/xWbQIeMgOw

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 16, 2020

Updated Thursday at 8:01 a.m.