Parnas says he doesn’t think that Joe Biden did anything wrong regarding Ukraine

Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and a key figure in the pressure campaign against Ukraine that is at the center of the impeachment proceedings says he does not believe that former Vice President Joe Biden (D) did anything wrong regarding his past decisions in the country. 

In an interview Wednesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Parnas said that after reviewing Biden’s efforts to oust a former top prosecutor in Ukraine who was purportedly corrupt, Parnas thought Biden had acted appropriately.

“After analyzing all the evidence and sitting back and really understanding what’s going on, I don’t think Vice President Biden did anything wrong. I think he was protecting our country and getting rid of, probably, a crooked attorney general,” Parnas said.

“After analyzing all the evidence and sitting back and really understanding what’s going on, I don’t think Vice President Biden did anything wrong. I think he was protecting our country and getting rid of, probably, a crooked attorney general.” -Lev Parnas pic.twitter.com/SWNe71SKqo

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 16, 2020

His statement comes after claims made by President Trump and Giuliani that Biden’s efforts to oust the prosecutor were motivated by the prosecutor’s investigation into Burisma, a company for which Biden’s son, Hunter, served as a board member. These claims, however, have been unsubstantiated. 

During his interview Wednesday, Parnas alleged that Trump’s interest in Ukraine had nothing to do with rooting out corruption in the country but hinged solely on his efforts to discredit Biden.

“[I]t was never about corruption,” Parnas said. “It was never — it was strictly about Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.”

The new allegations presented by Parnas further raises questions about whether the Senate will call other witnesses — including Parnas himself and former national security adviser John Bolton — to the stand during an impeachment trial that is poised to confirm the trial rules and hear oral arguments in the near future. 

Parnas’s account supports Democrats’ claims that the president withheld military aid to Ukraine over his desire for the nation’s then-newly elected president to launch an investigation into Biden, a top candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination.