"Let Lev Speak"

Donald Trump “knew exactly what was going on” in a scheme to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden, according to an associate of the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Lev Parnas, a businessman and GOP donor who was indicted for campaign finance violations, made the explosive allegations during an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night.

When Parnas was in Ukraine, attempting to pressure Ukrainian officials to help dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, he was doing so on behalf of the president and Giuliani, he said, speaking with his lawyer at his side.

[...]

Parnas also said other members of the Trump administration knew about the Ukraine pressure campaign. William Barr, the attorney general, “was basically on the team”, Parnas said. And the former national security adviser John Bolton, who recently indicated he would testify in the Senate impeachment trial if he was subpoenaed, also “100%” knew about the scheme, Parnas said.

  Guardian

Get Barr on the witness stand.

On behalf of Giuliani, Parnas said he told a Ukrainian official that unless the administration announced an intention to investigate the Bidens, Mike Pence would not attend the Zelenskiy’s inauguration. The next day, “to my awareness”, said Parnas, Trump called to inform Ukrainian officials that Pence would cancel his trip to Ukraine.

Ooooh. Hadn't heard that one.

Trump has insisted that he didn’t know Parnas and Igor Fruman, another Giuliani associate, who was indicted along with Parnas for making illegal campaign donations. Photos posted by Parnas to Facebook show himself and Fruman with Trump and president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

“It’s possible I have a picture with them because I have a picture with everybody,” Trump said.

But the president “lied”, Parnas told Maddow. “Me and him didn’t watch football games together, we didn’t eat hot dogs. But he knew exactly who I was.”

Parnas also said he was with Giuliani when he was on the phone with the president. At times, Giuliani took the calls on speakerphone. Other times, the president was speaking so loudly that Parnas could overhear the dialogue even when the speaker function was turned off, he explained to Maddow.

We've heard that about Trump phone calls before.

Newly released text messages between Parnas and the Trump donor Robert Hyde also imply that Marie Yovanovitch, a widely respected US ambassador to Kyiv whom Trump ordered removed from her post in April, was being surveilled. In the messages, Hyde hinted he could arrange for Yovanovitch to be removed, for a price. In light of these revelations, former diplomats and congressional Democrats have asked for an investigation into whether Yovanovitch was indeed being monitored.

Parnas said he didn’t believe Hyde was being serious, or that the ambassador was ever in actual danger. Parnas had met Hyde at the Trump hotel in Washington: “He was a regular, at the bar,” he said, describing Hyde as a “weird individual”.

Wierder than Rudy??

 As a matter of fact, look in the mirror, Lev.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

"President Trump knew exactly what was going on," said Parnas, a Soviet-born Florida businessman facing number criminal charges related to campaign finance violations.

"He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani, or the president."

[...]

Giuliani called Parnas's statement "sad".

"I feel sorry for him," Giuliani said in a text to a reporter from The Associated Press. "I thought he was an honourable man. I was wrong."

Asked directly if Parnas was lying, Trump's lawyer replied, "I'm not responding yet."

[...]

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said on Wednesday that Parnas's claims were "100 percent false".

  alJazeera

UPDATE:

Parnas unleashed a slew of new accusations against the president, including that he, as a representative of Trump, gave Ukrainian officials a “very harsh message” that the U.S. would cut off all aid to the country if it did not announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.

“The message was it wasn’t just military aid. It was all aid,” he told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “Basically, the relationship would be sour. We would stop giving them any kind of aid.”

  The Hill