Indicted Giuliani associate

New video shows indicted Giuliani associate with RNC chief Ronna McDaniel

The recording is the second video Lev Parnas' attorney has released this month.

By NATASHA BERTRAND

New video released by the attorney for Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who worked to drum up an investigation of Joe Biden out of Ukraine, appears to show Parnas and his business partner Igor Fruman mingling with Trump and GOP officials at a donor event in April 2018.

The recording appears to have been by Fruman, who was indicted along with Parnas on campaign finance charges last year, and is further evidence that Parnas and Fruman were invited to several events with Trump—who has since claimed not to know them—and other high-ranking GOP officials.

The video shows RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel greeting Fruman with a hug and saying, “I’m so glad you’re here,” before asking whether he’s ever been to Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago.

The encounter suggests a level of familiarity with Fruman, who along with Parnas donated more than $600,000 to 26 federal candidates, all Republicans, in 2016 and 2018. Most of the then-candidates who are now sitting members of Congress and plan to run for re-election in 2020, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, pledged to return the donations shortly after the indictment was made public.

“On a given day, the chairwoman greets hundreds if not thousands of people at events across the country,” an RNC spokesperson said in response to the video. “This is nothing more than that.”

The rest of the video, which was recorded on April 20, 2018, features Trump speaking to donors about the 2018 midterm elections and other issues including Syria and ISIS. At the end, the video shows Parnas having his photo taken with Trump.

The recording is the second the attorney, Joseph Bondy, has released this month showing Parnas and Fruman with the president. In the first, recorded on April 30, 2018, Trump can be heard speaking to the men about then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and demanding she be removed from her post.

That recording also shows Parnas and Fruman seeking to engage the president in a discussion of the Ukrainian energy industry. The pair founded a company called “Global Energy Producers, LLC” which they allegedly used to conceal their identities while making large campaign contributions, according to prosecutors.

Bondy’s decision to release the second recording is part of a broader strategy to prove that his client, Parnas, was just one small part of the effort to damage Biden that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment—and that everyone was in the loop on that plan.

To that end, Bondy has been tweeting photos of Parnas with various Trump allies—including members of his legal team, Pam Bondi and Jay Sekulow—who have either claimed not to know Parnas or declined to call for witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial.