Just who in the world is Lev Parnas?

 

In the news …

by Mustang

The House of Representative’s ace in the hole is everything we’ve come to expect of the Democratic Party.  Lev Parnas is that ace Democrats have been placing all their hopes on for a conviction of Donald J. Trump in the United States Senate, Mr. Trump and his legal team must be celebrating his acquittal even before the trial begins.

Lev Parnas is a Ukrainian-American “businessman” who has said that he’s got the goods on President Trump’s misconduct, which Democrats contend involves a conspiracy with Ukrainian officials to derail the presidential candidacy of Joe Biden.  Lev Parnas claims that he participated with the Trump administration in the search for detrimental information concerning Trump’s political opponents.

Parnas claims that he has proof against Trump/Giuliani, including a photograph taken with Trump.  The photograph was taken in 2006, which in case anyone is paying attention, was a full ten years ahead of the 2016 presidential elections.

So then, who is this guy?

Lev Parnas was born in Odessa, Ukraine, when Ukraine was still a satellite of the Soviet Union.  He migrated to the United States when he was about 3-years old.  He grew up in Detroit, Michigan and then later in Brooklyn, New York.  As a recent graduate from Baruch College, he worked for Kings Highway Realty, where he sold Trump Organization co-op apartments.

 

Parnas and Giuliani

In 1996, Parnas moved to Florida where he worked in several businesses involving real estate, securities, precious metals, and then ended up starting his own company, which he named Parnas Holdings.  After failing in a film project, he partnered with Igor Fruman in an energy venture.

According to the Miami Herald, Parnas owes more debt than he has net worth.  Igor Fruman was born in Belarus, migrated to the United States, and lived in Detroit, Michigan before migrating to South Florida.

His business interests have been an import/export company, a beach bar in Ukraine, and fund-raising for Jewish charities.  He is also an associate of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a wealthy Ukrainian who is under investigation by the Department of Justice for money laundering.

At this point, one might wonder what benefit Democrats think Parnas could offer their case against Trump, but it gets worse.

 

Democrats contend that Lev and Igor are (or have been) associates of Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.  According to CNN, the two men were recently arrested because of their involvement in an effort to influence US politics and policy through foreign funds paid to members of congress.

So far in the investigation, however, all we know for certain is that Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman had lunch with Giuliani a few hours before they were arrested by the FBI.  Then, according to journalist Peter Weber, Giuliani is guilty of taking Igor to the state funeral of George H. W. Bush.

Grasping at straws comes to mind.

Lev Parnas is the founder and CEO of a company called Fraud Guarantee.  Fraud Guarantee hired Giuliani Partners to provide legal advice, allegedly paying Giuliani’s firm a half-million dollars for their services.

Another allegation is that Florida officials may have dissolved Fraud Guarantee before it hired Giuliani’s consulting firm because Fraud Guarantee failed to file an annual report.  When did the state of Florida take this action?  In 2014.  Whether any of this is true may not matter, because unless someone alleges that Giuliani accepted the half-million dollars as a bribe, there is no crime in accepting money in exchange for services rendered so long as the services are legal.

To the best of my knowledge, offering legal advice is still a lawful enterprise.  More to the point, Mr. Giuliani’s status of Mr. Trump’s personal attorney does not preclude Giuliani from having other clients.  No one alleges any wrongdoing by Giuliani Partners, but everyone with a progressive agenda is happy to imply that Giuliani is somehow guilty by association.

According to Parnas’ story, Giuliani sent he and Igor to Ukraine in late 2018 to look for damaging information about President Trump’s political opponent, Joe Biden —I suppose in a somewhat similar fashion to the DNC’s concoction of the Steele Dossier. In November 2019, Parnas told CNN that he would be willing to testify to Congress regarding these activities, which also involved Representative Devin Nunes.  Soon after, everyone in the Democratic Party wet themselves.

Maybe Parnas’ testimony will work out for House Democrats, but Parnas and Fruman were arrested by the FBI on 9 Oct 2019 and charged with planning to transfer funds from a foreign government to US officials.  So, this actually may not go in the direction House Democrats hoped.

In 2018, Parnas and Fruman donated funds and pledge further additional money to an unnamed member of Congress, who was “recruited” for the campaign to oust US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.  These were donations that not only violated campaign limits but were also funneled to the congress-critter through a shell company.  Former Representative Pete Sessions is believed to be the “officially unnamed” member of congress.

As my good friend Bunkerville keeps reminding us, all is well in the swamp.

____________

That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees.  —Marcus Aurelius

 

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar

 

Trump reads aloud whistle blower’s lawyer declaring a coup!

 

Donald Trump Reads Aloud 2017 Tweets from Whistleblower’s Lawyer Declaring a ‘Coup’

It doesn’t get much better than this… throw in Ruddy’s tweet on the newly discovered Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Ukraine Burisma nonsense and we can put this down as a good day. Enjoy!

President Donald Trump kicked off his political rally in Louisiana by reading off tweets declaring a “coup” against the president in January 2017.

 

The Biden smoking gun.

Total smoking gun! This is 1 month before Joe Biden got the Prosecutor fired.

Burisma's lobbyists (recommended by Biden) were trying to get Obama State Dep’t to help cover-up Burisma’s corruption, by leveraging Hunter Biden, while Joe Biden was VP… pic.twitter.com/CHX8O2Yg4A

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 7, 2019

Other than that a good day in the swamp.

For the best in conservative news push the button.

 

Poll: Majority of Republicans support Trump’s Syrian policy

 

A poll released Wednesday found that 57 percent of Republicans support President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.

The statement of the year from Trump.

They have a problem at the border; it’s not our border,” the president said.

“If Syria wants to fight for their land, that’s up to Turkey and Syria,” he added. “Syria may have some help with Russia, and that’s fine. It’s a lot of sand. They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.”

An Economist/YouGov survey shows 25 percent of Republican respondents said they strongly approve of pulling out troops, while 32 percent stated they somewhat approve of the move. Further, 26 percent of Republicans surveyed said they oppose the move and 18 percent said they do not hold an opinion on the matter. The poll surveyed 1,500 people between October 13th-15th and had a margin of error of plus or minus of 2.7 percentage points.

The survey’s results show Republican lawmakers who oppose the troop pullout – such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) – are at odds with the majority of GOP voters.

More at Breitbart

For an excellent history on the background of the Kurds check out an earlier post – a portion here:

The Kurds -The Dilemma and its Complicated History

In 2014, President Barack Obama brought the United States into the Kurd-Turk conflict by authorizing the transfer of arms and munitions to the Kurds.  He then (without congressional approval) complicated the matter further (in his opposition to Bashir Al-Assad) by involving the United States in a multi-layered war in Syria —one that involved not only Turkey and the Kurds, but Russia as well.

In effect, Obama’s intervention ended up benefitting both Syria and Russia.  Presidents Putin and Al-Assad must be having quite a laugh at our expense.  This was the mess left on Trump’s plate on his first day in the White House.

……

Have the Kurds been US allies against ISIS?  In a fashion, yes —but they were not fighting for American ideals; they were fighting ISIS for their own purposes —with US aid— provided to the Kurds because it served the United States’ interests to provide it.  We must remember, however, that according to US law, the PKK and YPG are designated foreign terrorist organizations.  Remember too that despite actions taken by the US government, private American citizens have been prosecuted (and convicted) for supporting these Kurdish organizations.

Other than that, all is well in the swamp.

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A Guide to Trump’s foreign business interests

 

If you are interested in what world-wide assets Trump holds, this may be of interest to you. Clearly the intent of the open Secrets post is to cast aspersions on Trump and it becomes clear. Setting that aside, I have wondered myself just what and where are Trump’s financial interests. Wander over for some decent maps:

Trump continued to hold more than $130 million in foreign assets in a revocable trust as his second year in office came to a close, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis of the president’s most recent annual personal financial disclosure released by the Office of Government Ethics last month.Trump’s business entanglements continue to leave him with positions, assets, trademarks and other business interests in more than 30 countries.

Here you can see what countries are spending the most on lobbying and influence in the United States. FARA map linked at below at Open secrets

 

When it comes to foreign properties, the Trump Organization often charges a licensing fee to put the Trump name on the building and in some cases agrees to manage the property in exchange for a cut of the profits. This business model allows Trump to put his name on as many hotels and golf courses as possible while mitigating risk.

 

Check out Trump’s foreign interests in the countries below:Argentina | Azerbaijan | Bermuda | Brazil | Canada | China | Dominican Republic | Georgia | India | Indonesia | Ireland | Israel | Mexico | Panama | Philippines | Qatar | Russia | Saudi Arabia | Scotland | South Korea | St. Martin | St. Vincent | Turkey | United Arab Emirates | Uruguay |

 

Here you can see what countries are spending the most on lobbying and influence in the United States.

FARA

 

For the full thing go to Open secrets

WhatFingerNews  A great site for all the news.

Trump’s Et tu Brute – the second act ‘Russia’ is well underway

 

This is the “telI” on how the spying is going to be justified. Now we know why the Dems made such an issue over the use of the word “spying” at the hearing. See, they were just doing “surveillance.” “Counterintelligence.” “Informants versus Spies.” Trump asked for it don’t you know. We now know how the second act is going to play. Here is a flashback Saturday pick from May, 2018 that tells us how this will roll.

Trump has and had few friends through this Russia ordeal he has gone through these past couple of years. Let’s remember the ones still in office in 2020.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) recently suggested the FBI did nothing wrong when it used at least one government informant to secretly collect information on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. (May, 2018)

 

MSNBC via Morning Joe and Mika, CNN, CBS, et al, were ecstatic with the Trey Gowdy road show. He is making the rounds on TV with his take on the Mueller investigation.

Mueller is “following the book” with his investigation so he says.

Gowdy is packing up his swamp bags this year and calling it a day as far as Congress goes. Just setting himself up for the usual big bucks to follow.

I thought he was one of the good guys. But then, that is what I thought about Sessions. Even worse, Napalitano was more than happy to flip as well.  His comment that Gowdy had seen  the documents apparently thus changed his mind, when in fact nothing was produced last Friday (2018). Just the Swamp’s view of the world.

 

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) recently suggested the FBI did nothing wrong when it used at least one government informant to secretly collect information on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Public reports indicate, however, that Gowdy never even reviewed the relevant documents on the matter subpoenaed by Congress. In fact, a spokeswoman for Gowdy told The Federalist that the congressman doesn’t even know what documents and records were subpoenaed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

The briefing Gowdy and other lawmakers attended was scheduled at the behest of the White House after the Department of Justice (DOJ) obstructed the subpoena.

Activists and journalists were thrilled with Gowdy’s comments exonerating the FBI, claiming they “debunked” any concerns that people have about FBI behavior. CNN’s Manu Raju claimed, without providing evidence, that Gowdy had “seen the intel.”

More at The Federalist

Here we have Napolitano on Gowdy’s disputing of Trump’s ‘spygate’ claims. Included clips from the field day the MSM is having with it. (May 2018)

 

 

House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy joins ‘The Story’ with insight on FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign and responds to Adam Schiff’s comments. This is the original interview with Trey Gowdy,

 

I guess we knew this was coming. February 2018 :Is Trey Gowdy Trump’s Brutus? Just launched investigation into Porter

Thanks to WhatFingerNews for the coverage! A great site for all the news.

 

White House lawyer writes scathing letter to DOJ – ‘A Law School Exam Paper’

 

The letter submitted by a Emmet Flood, Trump’s WH Attorney to the DOJ is well worth the read. Anyone who has been waiting for the screw to turn the opposite direction will find some comfort that the adults are now in control of salvaging the defense of Trump.

There is no question that Trump’s first legal team took a naive approach with Mueller. In fact they allowed Mueller unfettered access to his Chief of Staff and Legal Consul when Trump could easily have claimed Executive privilege for these two without much blow back and is causing most of the ruckus at this moment with statements they made to Mueller’s team.

See my earlier post Trump’s legal team’s epic fail – meet John Dowd

September 7, 2018.

We had the good fortune of hearing the setup this past week when Hannity dragged John Dowd out from under a rock to explain his thinking. Dowd thought he could trust Mueller and had a handshake on it? He’s disappointed?

I can’t say he is in much better shape with media hog Rudy, who never let a minute go without being noticed.

John Dowd, who has urged the President to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and resist attacking him publicly, resigned as his disagreements with Trump intensified and the President stepped up his attacks on the special counsel. His departure raises questions about the direction of Trump’s legal strategy and could signal a more aggressive posture on Trump’s part. (You think??) H/t: CNN

 

 

Now the update with WH Emmet Flood’s letter to the DOJ. Do take the time to read the excellent writing by Flood. Link embedded below:

In a five-page letter, a top White House lawyer argued that Trump should be able to stop officials from talking to Congress about the report.

A top White House lawyer slammed Robert Mueller in a letter made public Thursday, calling out the special counsel for playing politics by submitting findings to Attorney General William Barr that are “part ‘truth commission’ report and part law school exam paper.”

Emmet Flood’s blistering rebuke of Mueller’s work came in a five-page letter to Barr dated April 19, one day after the public release of a redacted version of the special counsel’s report that detailed President Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere in the Russia probe but declined to make a determination on whether Trump obstructed justice.

The missive is the latest salvo in a long-running spat between the White House and the special counsel’s office over what information Mueller’s team should be allowed to release — and what Congress should see. It argues that Trump should be able to stop officials from talking to lawmakers about the report’s findings and attempts to justify the White House refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking further information about instances described in the report.

Read more

Trump’s top China trade chief disagrees with Trump, on camera

 

The attention is on North Korea, but a trade deal shaping up with China is not getting the attention it deserves.

Trump is hoping/expecting a trade deal with China after extending the deadline before raising tarriffs. The end of March is the target date. Looks like his point man trade representative Robert Lighthizer is full of himself. Video below. The background:

“President Trump has already started promoting a ‘signing summit’ at Mar-a-Lago before an agreement has even been inked,” Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. “I say to President Trump, it would be a momentous failure if you relent now and don’t receive meaningful, enforceable and verifiable commitments on structural reforms to China’s unfair trade policy.”

Considering that for decades no one cared one wit or bothered one wit to deal with China and our enormous trade deficit it’s pretty rich. Setting aside their theft of intellectual property. Sound familiar? How far did the previous administrations get with North Korea?

Looking at the headlines one wouldn’t know that Trump is the President and Bob is the worker bee – trade rep.

But now of course Schumer and the New York Times are more than happy to opine negatively. As far as Bob? From my quick lookie look just another swamp creature that worked government to make his bones, made his connections then moved on to a law firm to make the super big bucks on trade and now is taking his “skill set” back to government for a tune up.

New York Times:

Trump Undermines Top Trade Adviser as He Pushes for China Deal

WASHINGTON — President Trump has signaled that he is moving toward peace with China in a trade standoff that has rattled markets and businesses globally. But as he backs off his threat to impose higher tariffs, the president’s relationship with his own trade negotiator is now showing signs of strain.

The situation has left Mr. Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, who is both an ardent supporter of the president and a longtime China critic, in an uncomfortable bind. While broad tariffs on Chinese imports brought Beijing to the negotiating table, Mr. Trump has grown impatient with the talks, and a consensus is growing in Washington that Mr. Trump will ultimately accept a weak deal.

And despite the lack of a transformative arrangement he once promised, the president has begun dangling the idea of a “signing summit” with President Xi Jinping of China at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida resort. As a result, the president is undermining Mr. Lighthizer as he tries to pressure China to make big concessions.

 

Goodbye Lightie...U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer contradicted the boss in front of the Chinese delegation…then went on to get snarky.  Looks like Trump still can’t drain the swamp. This happened at a trade meeting presser? Don’t let the door hit you …. going out the door.

US president Donald Trump argued with his US trade chief during a televised trade meeting. When asked a question about trade talks with China, which have been taking place over the weekend, Donald Trump said he is against using memoranda of understanding [MOUs].

‘I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything. To me they don’t mean anything,’ Trump said. Robert Lighthizer jumped in to explain that an ‘MOU is a contract … a binding agreement between two people’. To which a gruff Trump replied, ‘I disagree.’  Lighthizer got the message, adding ’from now on we’re not using the word Memorandum of Understanding anymore. We’re going to use the term trade agreement, all right?’

The Chinese delegates must have been aghast at the disrespect shown Trump.

 

 

Godfather  – Never tell outside the family what you’re thinking