More testimony?

Two associates of Rudy Giuliani tried to recruit a top Ukrainian energy official in March in a proposed takeover of the state oil-and-gas company, describing the company’s chief executive and the then-U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch as part of “this Soros cartel” working against President Trump.

“You’re a Republican, right?” Andrew Favorov, the head of natural gas for state-run Naftogaz, recalled the men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, asking him, after their reference to investor and Democratic donor George Soros. “We want you to be our guy.”

  Marketwatch

Apparently all Republicans are now considered Trump supporters and corruptible, but let's hold up here a minute. Andrew Favorov is a Ukrainian energy official, and they think he's a Republican? These guys really weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, were they?  Good enough for Rudy and Trump, though.

Favorov said he met voluntarily this week with New York federal prosecutors as part of an investigation into the activities of Fruman, Parnas and Giuliani.

[...]

Naftogaz is the most important company in Ukraine, representing nearly 10% of the country’s gross domestic product and supplying virtually all of the country’s natural gas.

Favorov said he was bewildered by Parnas and Fruman’s pitch to stage a takeover of Naftogaz and put Mr. Favorov in place as CEO. On one hand, the pair appeared to know little about the natural gas business; on the other it was clear to him they had significant political connections “They don’t teach you how to deal with this in business school,” Favorov said.

ANYwhere.

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

Everything is connected: Nunes in the web

Well, well, well. Look where we find Devin Nunes.

Joseph A. Bondy, the attorney for Lev Parnas [an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani], told CNN that [a] Ukrainian official told his client about [a] meeting with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, in which the GOP lawmaker sought to find dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

"Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December," Bondy said.

  The Hill

Hearsay! will shout Nunes and Company. And Nunes immediately filed another one of his sure-to-lose lawsuits against CNN for printing the story! (AND one against The Daily Beast for a story it published on the same thing.) He's also suing two parody twitter accounts for making fun of him.

Dein Nunes' cow...

And Devin Nunes' Mom...

He'll have even less of a chance to win against major news organizations than parody Twitter accounts. He must have deep pockets.

Bondy told CNN that Parnas put Nunes in touch with Ukrainians to help Nunes get damaging information on Biden, one of the president’s chief political rivals.

Giuliani has previously discussed his conversations with Shokin and Parnas as part of his work on behalf of the president. However, Bondy’s discussions with CNN mark the first time Nunes has been implicated in the effort to dig up dirt on Biden.

We know Nunes was in Vienna last December.

CNN claims that they began to ask Nunes questions about his Vienna trip on November 14, to which Nunes responded to CNN: “I don’t talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. At any time. On any question.”

CNN asked Nunes about the trip again on Thursday, to which Nunes responded: “To be perfectly clear, I don’t acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. I don’t acknowledge any question from you ever.”

  Daily Wire

You may remember that Vienna is where Dmytro Firtash is hiding out avoiding extradition to the US.

Imagine that. Kind of gives more clarity to why Nunes' performance in the impeachment hearings has been so over-the-top disgusting and ridiculous.

And, by the way, regarding Firtash, even Republicans are wondering WTF? This SHOULD be where Republicans grow some balls and accept the reality.

Firtash was indicted in 2014 for what federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois allege was his role in bribing Indian officials in order to get a lucrative mining deal to sell titanium to Boeing. He was arrested in Vienna in March 2014, released on $174 million bail, and has been contesting his extradition to the U.S. ever since.

[...]

A U.S. senator's office says that after 18 months it has still received no answer from the Justice Department about why a Ukrainian oligarch linked to Paul Manafort and two men who work with Rudolph Giuliani has not been extradited to the U.S. to face federal bribery charges.

A spokesperson for Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said, "We have not received a response" to a 2018 letter about Dmytro Firtash.

  NBC

You're mighty patient, sir.

On June 25, Austria approved the extradition of Firtash, who has been living in Vienna since his 2014 arrest, but Firtash has asked that the case be reopened.

Sen. Wicker sent a letter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in April 2018 asking about the status of Firtash's extradition. NBC News exclusively obtained that letter through Freedom of Information Act litigation with the Justice Department.

This administration is pure rot through and through.

Wicker alleged in the letter that Firtash, who has also been linked to Russian organized crime, had made "hundreds of millions" in "illicit profits" while fighting extradition to the U.S.

How much of that went into Nunes' pockets?

"This corruption undermines Ukrainian reform efforts that the United States strongly supports," Wicker wrote to Sessions. He asked Sessions about the status of Firtash's extradition case.

[...]

Rudolph Giuliani has denied any involvement with Firtash and says he has never met him. One of the two Ukrainian-American Giuliani associates who was arrested at Dulles airport before boarding a flight to Vienna last week worked for the Firtash legal team as a translator. Giuliani had planned a trip to Vienna at the same time but said he was not planning to meet with Firtash.

Whatever, Rudy.

The Firtash legal team includes Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, the pro-Trump husband and wife attorneys who Fox News reported were "working off the books" with Giuliani as part of his Ukrainian venture, in which he was seeking information about Joe and Hunter Biden and about the Ukrainian gas industry.

"So, Firtash, I know nothing about," Giuliani told NBC News. "I'm not going to answer any questions about because I'm probably going to get it wrong, and you can ask them."

Whatever, Rudy.

Giuliani said the two men arrested at Dulles on Oct. 9 for campaign finance violations, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, "help me find people," and that he also represents their company as a lawyer.

"Help me find people." That doesn't sound very mobbish, does it? I would think the normal phrase would be "work as private investigators."

Parnas is employed by Firtash's legal team, according to Mark Corallo, spokesperson for diGenova and Toensing.

Sen. Wicker's 2018 letter alleges that prior to 2014, Firtash acted as a "direct agent of the Kremlin" during a separate scheme to skim money from natural gas transfers between Russia's Gazprom and Ukraine.

I don't know how separate that is, because Rudy has been connected to dealings with Ukraine's national gas company Naftogaz.*

"By manipulating natural gas prices," the Wicker letter says, "the Kremlin used RosUkrEnergo as a tool to keep [Kiev] dependent on Moscow." According to the court documents, RosUkrEnergo was a firm created by Firtash and Gazprom, which is majority owned by the Russian government, to skim money.

"Despite his arrest" in 2014, Wicker wrote, "Firtash continues to engage in corruption in Ukraine, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits." His letter estimated the gross amount earned since Firtash's arrest at $1.5 billion.

[...]

In a statement, Rick VanMeter, a spokesperson for Wicker, said, "As the co-chair of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Senator Wicker regularly meets with foreign delegations. He has a deep interest in Ukraine and a strong record of opposing Vladimir Putin's aggression in the region. He stands firmly with the people of Ukraine fighting for freedom and reform. The letter was an inquiry from Senator Wicker to the U.S. administration seeking updates on efforts to extradite Mr. Firtash — widely known for his corruption and connection with the Kremlin and organized crime. The letter was written after considering a range of credible sources, including meetings with foreign delegations, publicly available data, and non-public information."

So Roger Wicker should be seriuosly considering his vote in the Trump impeachment Senate trial. I bet he's being watched very, very closely.

Firtash, 54, owns a valuable portfolio of chemical, real estate and energy businesses. He is perhaps best known in the U.S. as a one-time associate of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, who is now in federal prison.

And I have no doubt soon-to-be-ex-Energy Secretary Rick Perry has fingerprints all over this business.

One of the other partners working with Manafort on the deal was Brad Zackson, the former exclusive broker for the properties of President Donald Trump's late father, Fred Trump.

[...]

According to a December 2008 State Department cable posted by WikiLeaks, Firtash told U.S. Ambassador William Taylor during a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev that he got his start in business with the permission of one of Russia's most well-known organized crime bosses, Semion Mogilevich.

Mogilevich was once on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list and has an Interpol Red Notice out for his arrest. The FBI alleges that he is "involved in weapons trafficking, contract murders, extortion, drug trafficking, and prostitution on an international scale."

[...]

"[Firtash] was adamant that he had not committed a single crime when building his business empire," the cable says, and "argued that outsiders still failed to understand the period of lawlessness that reigned in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union."

*Regarding Rudy and Ukrainian gas...this is out today:

The CEO of Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz told Time he is ready to give evidence to U.S. federal prosecutors probing the business dealings of President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. “I will with a high likelihood be invited to testify in this case,” Andriy Kobolyev said, adding that he “would be willing to come and testify” if he were summoned. Naftogaz is reportedly connected to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two men who allegedly worked with Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Parnas and Fruman allegedly tried to use their political connections to replace the leadership at Naftogaz, which resisted the two men's efforts for a gas deal.

Kobolyev said he would be willing to give prosecutors information on Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani because, as he said, “everything is connected.”

  Daily Beast

Everything.

And, another Nunes lawsuit:  one against Esquire for a story about the farm he has in Iowa titled “Devin Nunes’s Family Farm Is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret.”  In that article we learn he also has suits against Twitter and McClatchy newspapers.

If you'd like to keep track of Devin Nunes' cow, click this graphic...

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

UPDATE:

It just got clearer.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Giuliani is going to need a pardon

Federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating Rudy Giuliani are seeking to interview people with knowledge of Ukraine's state-run oil-and-gas company, Naftogaz, according to two people familiar with the matter, suggesting investigators have opened a line of inquiry into whether Giuliani and his associates sought to secure energy deals by asserting influence on the company.

[...]

Naftogaz stands at the center of an effort by Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and their purported natural-gas company, Global Energy Producers, to replace Naftogaz's chief executive officer with someone who would be more beneficial to their own business interests earlier this year. They pursued that outcome, CNN has reported, around the same time they were working with Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, to encourage Ukranian officials to investigate Trump's political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. They were also actively pushing to have the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, removed.

[...]

An American energy consultant who operates in Ukraine, Dale Perry, described the efforts to oust Naftogaz's CEO, Andriy Kobolyev, who is known for his anti-corruption reforms at the company. At an energy conference in Houston last March, Parnas and Fruman asked a senior Naftogaz executive Andrew Favorov if he would go along with their plan to oust the company's current CEO and become its head, according to Perry, who is Favorov's former business partner.

  CNN

They can put "multitasking" on their resumés.

Parnas and Fruman also told Favorov that Trump would soon replace the then-US ambassador to Ukraine, and that an ambassador more amenable to their energy-business interest would be appointed, according to Perry.

"What they said was, not that we can, but they are removing her, and that has already been agreed at the highest level of the US government," Perry said. [ed: Emphasis added.]

[...]

Giuliani has maintained he's acted appropriately in the interests of his client, President Donald Trump.

He's going to have to quit doing that if he wants to stay out from under the bus.

Perry believes Parnas and Fruman, who have no prior experience in the gas business, may have had assistance from indicted Ukranian oligarch Dmitri Firtash, who made his fortune being the intermediary between Naftogaz and Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy corporation. The two men mentioned Firtash in their meeting with Favorov, according to Perry, saying Firtash believed Naftogaz owed him money. Firtash has been fighting extradition into the United States since he was indicted on bribery charges in 2013. Firtash's spokesperson told CNN Parnas was just a translator for Firtash, and the two have no business arrangement.

Two sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Perry's description of the meeting between Parnas, Fruman and Favorov was accurate.

[...]

As they pursue interviews with associates of Naftogaz, prosecutors in New York are also investigating Giuliani's ties to Global Energy Producers.

[...]

Robert Costello, an attorney for Giuliani, told CNN, "Mr. Giuliani had no interest in GEP at anytime. This is quite simply a false story and I am sure counsel for Mr. Fruman will say the same thing. Someone is spending a lot of time and imagination dreaming up one false story after another."

The orange one.

Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, said an American member of Naftogaz's board told her in May that a number of Ukrainians had complained to him about Giuliani discussing investigations and pushing to change the board of Naftogaz.

Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert, testified before congress that the board member was aware of effort by Giuliani to "facilitate financial transactions."

Parnas and Fruman told Ukranian officials that Giuliani was involved in their liquified natural gas venture, according to Kenneth McCallion, a former federal prosecutor who has represented Ukrainians.

[...]

"It's really not just about the Bidens," McCallion said of their interactions with Ukrainian officials. "It's really about the money."

Isn't it always?

[Parnas and Fruman] created Global Energy Producers and used it to donate $325,000 to a political action committee, America First Action, which supports President Donald Trump. Prosecutors allege Parnas and Fruman used the company to hide the source of their donation.

At the time of the donation in May 2018, according to the indictment, "GEP had not engaged in the [liquified natural gas] business, and had no income or significant assets."

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

UPDATE:

"Inappropriate"

Alarm bells went off at the National Security Council when the White House's top Europe official was told that Giuliani was pushing the incoming Ukrainian administration to shake up the leadership of state-owned energy giant Naftogaz, the sources said. The official, Fiona Hill, learned then about the involvement of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates who were helping with the Naftogaz pressure and also with trying to find dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

Hill quickly briefed then-national security adviser John Bolton about what she'd been told, the individuals with knowledge of the meeting said.

The revelation significantly moves up the timeline of when the White House learned that Trump's allies had engaged with the incoming Ukrainian administration and were acting in ways that unnerved the Ukrainians — even before President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had been sworn in. Biden had entered the presidential race barely three weeks earlier.

In a White House meeting the week of May 20, Hill was also told that the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, a major Republican donor tapped by Trump for the coveted post in Brussels, was giving Zelenskiy unsolicited advice on who should be elevated to influential posts in his new administration, the individuals said. One of them said it struck the Ukrainians as "inappropriate."

  NBC

A bit of a sticky wicket for Mr. Sondland.  He'll be called back in.

Hill learned of Zelenskiy's concerns from former U.S. diplomat Amos Hochstein, now a member of Naftogaz's supervisory board. Hochstein had just returned from a pre-inauguration meeting with Zelenskiy and his advisers in Kyiv in which they discussed Giuliani's and Sondland's overtures and how to inoculate Ukraine from getting dragged into domestic U.S. politics.

Add another name to the list of witnesses.

The White House meeting also offers some of the first indications of what led Hill to conclude that Giuliani and Sondland were part of a squad running a "shadow Ukraine policy," as she later would testify to Congress.

Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry also backed an effort to change the membership of Naftogaz's supervisory board, NBC News previously reported. The board includes four international members and three Ukrainian nationals. A person close to Sondland said he and Perry merely wanted changes to the governance and structure of Naftogaz's board needed to secure Western investment in Ukraine's energy industry.

"Merely".

Zelenskiy's May 7 Kyiv meeting with Hochstein and top aides in which he voiced dismay about Giuliani and Sondland included Andriy Kobolev, Naftogaz's CEO. It took place the day after the State Department announced then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was returning home ahead of schedule.

[...]

Yovanovitch's abrupt recall months ahead of schedule left no doubt for Zelenskiy and his aides that Giuliani's agenda had Trump's full backing and that his government would have to somehow address the demands for investigations and changes at Naftogaz, individuals familiar with the matter said.

[...]

"The message was clear: 'You better listen to us. If we tell you to investigate Biden, you better do it. Look at what happened to (Yovanovitch),'" said one individual familiar with the outlook of Zelenskiy's office at the time. "They saw that Giuliani went after her — and he won."

[...]

Zelenskiy, thrust into a precarious position by the impeachment proceedings against a president who still controls U.S. policy toward Ukraine, has publicly insisted his administration did not feel pressured.

But Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who visited Zelenskiy last month aiming to persuade him not to get dragged into the U.S. political fracas, said the young Ukrainian president simply can't afford to acknowledge publicly what was evident during his trip to Kyiv.

Not until 2021 at least.