Do you remember these two whom the FBI arrested last month?
Parnas and Fruman, two members of
President Donald Trump’s legal team, were arrested for
campaign-finance violations while apparently trying to flee the country. According to the
indictment, Parnas and Fruman allegedly laundered money through a
pro-Trump 2020 political action committee while lobbying for the removal of US
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch—who was indeed removed in May.
Parnas and Fruman started a new natural gas venture and were
trying to swing a deal with Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state run oil and gas company, where they would export liquefied
natural gas. Naftogaz wasn’t interested,
not least because Parnas and Fruman had no experience in the energy industry. So Parnas and Fruman started to push for Naftogaz
to change its board, replacing executives with ones who would go along with their
schemes. While they were doing that,
Rich Perry was trying to get one of his favorites installed on the same
board.
The board of Naftogaz is controlled by the Ukrainian
president, and has a number of seats filled by representatives from the U.S.
and the EU (to prevent corruption). To get their deal, they
needed to change the board, specifically the US members of the board. In order
to do that, they needed the Ukrainian president and the US government to
agree, especially the US ambassador,
Yovanovich. But Yovanovich is a professional diplomat whose
role was to fight corruption in Ukraine, not promote it. She opposed their plan. So, Parnas and Fruman plotted to get her removed.
Lutsenko worked with Parnas and Fruman to get Yovanovich removed. To push this plan, they had several
meetings with Pete Sessions, lobbying him for Yovanovich’s removal. Sessions wrote the letter to the Trump
administration that started the smear campaign against Yovanovich. What did Sessions stand to gain from that (besides money?)
Remember where Parnas and Fruman were going (with one-way
tickets) when they got arrested.
Remember that Giuliani was heading there soon afterwards. Who is under arrest and out on bail in
Geneva, fighting extradition to the US?
Trump has already begun trying to distance himself from
Parnas and Fruman, telling reporters he doesn’t
know the two men who’ve taken photos
with him dating back to at least 2014, dined with his
son, and worked closely
with his personal lawyer on the president’s personal project. But with Giuliani
reportedly under
investigation as well for his business with the duo, it’s clear that
Trump won’t be able to run away from the evidence of his corruption for long.
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