MANHATTAN (CN) – Days after reports emerged that Rudy Giuliani sought profits for Soviet-born real estate entrepreneurs in Ukraine, those two men were arrested at Dulles Airport, heading out of the country with one-way tickets to Vienna.
Federal prosecutors unsealed the indictment against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman on Thursday morning in the Southern District of New York, saying the pair conspired to launder foreign money into U.S. elections through limited liability companies by using straw donors.
“They sought political influence not only to advance their own financial interests but to advance the political interests of at least one foreign official – a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman announced at a press conference.
The bombshell charges instantly reverberated on Capitol Hill. House Democrats had issued subpoenas to the Soviet-born entrepreneurs in connection with an ongoing impeachment inquiry. Their attorney John Dowd, who was also President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, previously told Congress his clients would refuse to comply with the depositions, which had been scheduled for today and Friday.
Attorney General William Barr, who met with Southern District prosecutors on Wednesday, told NBC News today that he had been aware of an investigation into Parnas and Fruman shortly after he came into office this past February.
Once the criminal charges became public this morning, three House Committees notified Dowd that stonewalling their demands for documents would come at a price.
“Your clients’ failure or refusal to comply with the subpoenas, including at the direction or behest of the President or the White House, shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry and may be used as an adverse inference against your clients and anyone with whom they are acting in concert, including the President,” the 4-page letter warns.
Berman characterized the charges against the pair as being, at heart, about the “integrity of our elections.”
“Parnas and Fruman, who had no significant prior history of political donations, sought to advance their personal financial interests and the political interests of at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working,” Berman wrote in the 21-page indictment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos, who previously landed a three-year sentence for Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen, is the lead prosecutor on the case.
“In order to conceal from third parties, including creditors, their sources of funding and capital, Parnas and Fruman created a limited liability corporation, Global Energy Producers, and then intentionally caused certain large contributions to be reported in the name of GEP instead of in their own names.”
When news reports about these contributions first became public, one of Parnas’ employees remarked: “That is what happens when you become visible ... the buzzards descend,” according to the indictment.