...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.[W]hen Rudy Giuliani told me he couldn’t get together for an interview, his reason made sense: As with many nights of late, he was due to appear on Hannity. When I suggested [the] evening instead, his response was a bit more curious. We would have to aim for lunch, Giuliani told me, because he was planning to fly to Vienna, Austria, at night. He didn’t offer any details beyond that.
Giuliani called me at 6:22 p.m. [...] —around the same time that two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested at Dulles Airport while waiting to board an international flight with one-way tickets. As The Wall Street Journal reported [...] , the two men were bound for Vienna. The Florida businessmen, who are reported to have assisted Giuliani in his alleged efforts to investigate Joe Biden and his family ahead of the 2020 election, were charged with campaign-finance violations, with prosecutors alleging that they had conspired to funnel money from a Russian donor into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
But Giuliani, when confirming [...] that Parnas and Fruman were heading to Vienna on matters “related to their business,” told the Journal that he himself only had plans to meet with them when they returned to Washington. By this logic, Giuliani was also planning to fly to Vienna within roughly 24 hours of his business associates, but do no business with them while all three were there.
[...]
Why were Parnas and Fruman bound for Vienna? Why was Giuliani—if what he told me was true—planning to be in the same city a day later?
Giuliani finally sent me a text message at 4:18 p.m. ET: “I can’t comment on it at this time.”
Parnas and Fruman, both Soviet-born, have been instrumental in helping Giuliani develop Ukrainian contacts in his quest to prove that Biden, while vice president, tried to curtail an investigation into a Ukrainian gas company for which his son Hunter Biden served on the board. Parnas told NPR, for example, that he was the one who had arranged a Skype call between Giuliani and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to discuss their corruption theory. Parnas was also present at meetings in New York and Warsaw earlier this year with Giuliani and Yuriy Lutsenko, another former prosecutor general for Ukraine.
[...]
Along with allegedly using a shell company to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and a pro-Trump super PAC, Parnas and Fruman were also accused by federal prosectors of meddling in American political activities on behalf of one or more Ukrainian officials. In the 21-page indictment, prosecutors allege that Parnas and Fruman lobbied for the removal of the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Marie Yovanovitch—something Giuliani sought as well, arguing that she was biased against the president. In May, Trump ordered Yovanovitch’s removal.
[...]
Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer alongside Giuliani, told reporters that neither Trump nor his campaign has “anything to do with the scheme these guys were involved in.”
The Atlantic
UPDATE: Oligarch in exile, Dmitry Firtash, is in Vienna, avoiding extradition to the US.
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