Lawyer says Parnas can’t attend Senate trial due to ankle bracelet

Lev Parnas, the former Rudy Giuliani associate who has been thrust into the center of Congress’s impeachment proceedings, got a ticket to attend the Senate’s trial on Wednesday but won’t be able to attend due to his ankle bracelet, his lawyer said.

Joseph Bondy, Parnas’s attorney, said his client had received tickets to attend Wednesday’s proceedings from Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). Schumer’s office confirmed it offered the tickets.

“Although we couldn’t arrange to have Lev Parnas watch the trial with us because his GPS ankle monitor is not allowed, Lev will join us in DC tomorrow to show support for a fair trial, with witnesses & evidence,” Bondy tweeted.

Although we couldn’t arrange to have Lev Parnas watch the trial with us because his GPS ankle monitor is not allowed, Lev will join us in DC tomorrow to show support for a fair trial, with witnesses & evidence. #AmericansWantWitnesses #LetLevSpeak #LevRemembers #CallTheWitnesses pic.twitter.com/4VpezvQw4K

— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) January 29, 2020

Attached to Bondy’s tweet was a letter affirming Parnas’s ability to travel to Washington, D.C., but denying his request to have his ankle monitor removed.

No electronics are allowed in the Senate chamber during the trial. 

Schumer’s office confirmed it had extended an invitation to Bondy and Parnas to attend the trial. 

“Like many other New York constituents, Mr. Bondy reached out and asked for gallery tickets, and we said yes,” a Schumer spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. 

Parnas was forced to wear the ankle monitor after he was indicted in connection with an alleged campaign finance scheme to use a shell company to donate money to a pro-Trump election committee. He and another associate pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Soviet-born Florida businessman has been a focus of the impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill over his work with Giuliani to further President Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit the president politically.

Parnas bucked Giuliani and Trump, deciding to cooperate with House Democrats’ impeachment investigation. Bondy confirmed last week that Parnas handed over a 2018 recording of Trump discussing the dismissal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Trump and his associates are known to have viewed Yovanovitch, who was a career official at the State Department and was known as an anti-corruption crusader, as an impediment to their efforts to get Kyiv to conduct the requested investigations.