He was a key impeachment witness with testimony Congress wanted. What happened next is a revealing story about modern American justice and Democracy
But Parnas didn’t make the cut. Guiliani and Trump washed their hands of him, and Parnas continues to feel the full weight of the Justice Department. The United States has made separation between the Justice Department and the White House a cornerstone of its constitutional system in order to prevent abuse of law enforcement’s awesome powers. But Trump has re-staffed the department with enough lackeys that it operates less like a blind guardian of justice and more like Donald Trump’s law firm.
Giuliani declined to comment for this story, other than to call Parnas a “proven liar.” His defense attorney, Robert Costello, tells Rolling Stone “Should Rudy have ever associated himself with Parnas? In hindsight of course not. We all make mistakes.” Jay Sekulow, the president’s attorney, emailed Dowd to say that he had discussed the matter with the president, who consented to allowing Dowd to represent Parnas. In about a week, circumstances changed following Parnas’ arrest. Trump would he insist he didn’t know Parnas, the man for whom he had just waived away any conflicts clearing the path for Trump’s former lawyer to take over Parnas’ case.says he flew from Vienna to meet Dowd, who lives in Massachusetts.
Dowd is a gruff, former Marine captain. He once cursed at CNBC and flipped off a cameraman after his client, a hedge fund billionaire, was convicted in an insider trading scheme. Dowd was beginning to grate on Parnas. “He talks to you like you’re a nobody,” Parnas says. Two days later, after a final pre-trip meeting with Giuliani, Parnas headed to the airport. Around 6 p.m., as Parnas and his partner, Igor Fruman, were walking down a jetway at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. for a one-way first-class flight to Europe. Parnas says they were headed to Vienna prepare Ukraine’s former top prosecutor for a planned interview on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Plainclothes FBI agents stopped the two men and asked to see their passports.
One person who was closely following events was Attorney General William Barr, who was first briefed on the matter shortly after he took office in February 2019. The day after Parnas’ arrest, Barr visited the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which had been leading the investigation into Parnas. There, Barr met with the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoff Berman, and thanked him for his work on the Parnas investigation, says Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman.
“I’m still confused,” Parnas says. “What the fuck is going on?” Why was he being deemed a flight risk? If this is an election case, why was he being treated like he was a gangster like El Chapo? “If you don’t get out of here right now,” Parnas says he replied, “we’re going to have a major problem.”
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