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What Happened Today in Trump Impeachment Inquiry News
(about 3 hours later)
House Democrats reconvened Thursday with fresh support for their impeachment efforts, and fresh fodder with the indictment of two associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two associates of Rudy Giuliani, were indicted on campaign finance charges. They were part of the pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate President Trump’s political rivals, including Joe Biden.
House Democrats issued a subpoena to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, seeking documents regarding his knowledge of Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, and his own efforts in Ukraine.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman “conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office,” including by making donations to a pro-Trump super PAC. Read the indictment.
Democrats are giving Mr. Perry until Oct. 18 to comply with the subpoena, part of a broadening impeachment inquiry.
The indictment refers to a “Congressman-1” — identified in campaign finance filings as former Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas — who was the beneficiary of approximately $3 million that the super PAC spent during the 2018 cycle. The men sought Mr. Sessions’s assistance in removing the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, “at least in part at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials,” according to the indictment. (The men were also seeking political assistance setting up a legal marijuana business in Nevada.)
Mr. Perry became enmeshed in the Ukraine scandal after it emerged that during a visit to the country in May for the inauguration of Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the energy secretary took the opportunity to suggest the names of Americans that the new Ukrainian government might want to advise and oversee the country’s state-owned gas company.
Shortly after the indictment became public, House impeachment investigators issued subpoenas to Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, compelling them to speak with Congress about their work with Mr. Giuliani in Ukraine.
“Recently, public reports have raised questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President,” the Democratic committee chairmen wrote. “These reports have also raised significant questions about your efforts to press Ukrainian officials to change the management structure at a Ukrainian state-owned energy company to benefit individuals involved with Rudy Giuliani’s push to get Ukrainian officials to interfere in our 2020 election.”
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was subpoenaed for records that could shed light on any role he may have played in Mr. Trump’s attempts to pressure the Ukrainian government. Investigators also want to know whether Mr. Perry tried to influence the management of Ukraine’s state-owned gas company.
The subpoena was issued by Representatives Adam B. Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Eliot L. Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for us, said federal prosecutors probably had the indictment ready to go for a while and were keeping tabs on Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. When the two got one-way tickets out of the country, she said, the prosecutors realized that they had to move.
Two associates of Mr. Trump’s private lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, tied to the Ukraine scandal have been arrested and were expected to appear in court in Northern Virginia on Thursday, according to a spokesman in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.
My colleague Mike Schmidt got an eyewitness account of the arrests in the Lufthansa lounge in the B concourse of Dulles International Airport on Wednesday. Here’s what he heard:
The two men, Lev Parnas, who was born in Ukraine, and Igor Fruman, who was born in Belarus, are believed to be important witnesses in the House’s impeachment inquiry of Mr. Trump. Their arrest on campaign finance charges were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
They were indulging themselves in the free drinks and food while talking on the phone and waiting for their overnight flight to Frankfurt. Around 5:45 p.m., the men and the other first class travelers were invited to board before all the other passengers. As they made their way down a corridor toward their plane, two plainclothes officers stepped out and stopped them.
Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman aided Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to gin up investigations in Ukraine into Mr. Biden and his son Hunter Biden, among other potentially political beneficial investigations for Mr. Trump. Mr. Parnas had been scheduled to participate in a deposition with House impeachment investigators on Capitol Hill on Thursday, and Mr. Fruman on Friday. Neither had been expected to show up voluntarily. House Democrats were preparing to issue subpoenas to force them to do so.
“We need to see your passports,” one of the officers said.
The men are said to have made possibly illegal donations to Mr. Trump’s Super PAC and to the campaigns of prominent House Republicans to curry political favors, including former Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who was defeated for re-election last year.
The passengers took them out, and the officers determined who was standing in front of them. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman were told to turn around. As they made their way back into the terminal, they were greeted by a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes officers who arrested them.
As he made his way to a campaign rally in Minneapolis, the president said he did not know the two men, despite multiple pictures of the three together. “I have a picture with everybody,” he told reporters Thursday afternoon. He added that he hoped Mr. Giuliani does not get indicted too.
At first glance, the two men might seem peripheral to the events that the House is investigating. But they were involved in the Ukraine affair from the beginning, dating to Mr. Parnas’s job as Mr. Giuliani’s fixer in Ukraine.
Shortly after their indictment became public, House impeachment investigators issued subpoenas to both Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, compelling them to speak with Congress about their work with Mr. Giuliani in Ukraine.
This evening I stopped by the desk of my colleague Ken Vogel, who revealed Mr. Parnas’s involvement in Mr. Giuliani’s Ukraine efforts, to get a sense of why they matter to the impeachment investigation.
Mr. Parnas had been scheduled to appear for a deposition on Thursday and Mr. Fruman on Friday, but even before their arrests, a lawyer for both men had indicated they would not comply voluntarily. The subpoena, which instructs them to now appear next Wednesday, makes no mention of the federal indictment, which may complicate their ability or willingness to cooperate with the House’s investigation.
Why are these two men so important to understanding the whole Ukraine scandal?
Facing criminal charges for work that appears to have at least some connection to the subject of the impeachment inquiry, they may choose to assert Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
They were Rudy Giuliani’s enablers and facilitators in his Ukrainian expedition. They connected Mr. Giuliani to the Ukrainian prosecutors who provided both the information and the potential investigations that are at the center of President Trump’s interest in Ukraine. They were at the very front of all of this activity that led to what became the whistle-blower complaint.
In a letter to John Dowd, the lawyer representing both men, three House committee chairmen wrote that Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman were “required by law to comply with the enclosed subpoenas.”
Why did that activity raise alarm bells?
“Your clients are private citizens who are not employees of the Executive Branch. They may not evade requests from Congress for documents and information necessary to conduct our inquiry. They are required by law to comply with the enclosed subpoenas. They are not exempted from this requirement merely because they happen to work with Mr. Giuliani, and they may not defy congressional subpoenas merely because President Trump has chosen the path of denial, defiance, and obstruction.”
Their ability to get Congressman Sessions to take up their cause on such a niche issue that might not have been on his radar — helping to oust the American ambassador to Ukraine — is precisely the type of thing that campaign finance watchdogs warn of when they bemoan the power of money of politics.
[Read the letter from committee chairmen.]
How valuable can they be to federal prosecutors, who’ve clearly been investigating them long before the impeachment investigation?
It depends who the prosecutors are after. The two men could certainly flip and provide plenty of information about Rudy Giuliani. I have a source who saw Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Giuliani together not infrequently at the Trump hotel here in Washington.
On Thursday morning, Representative John Shimkus, a veteran Illinois Republican who has announced he will not seek re-election, took to St. Louis talk radio to say, “pull my name off the ‘I support Donald Trump’ list.” (Five minutes and 18 seconds in.)
What about to Congress? They were supposed to be important witnesses in the impeachment investigation this week before they were arrested.
It was not because of the latest twist in the Ukraine scandal. He pointedly did not break from the president on impeachment. It was because of what he saw as Mr. Trump’s abandonment of America’s ally, Syria’s Kurds, who are now under Turkish onslaught. “I’m heartbroken,” he told KMOX.
They could be very useful to Congress, but maybe not as much in the impeachment inquiry. They don’t have a ton of access or visibility into Trump himself, so it could be a bit of a bank shot. But in another way, they could be extremely useful. Congress has shown a great interest in the outsourcing of foreign policy, and these guys are right in the middle of that.
Why is that important? Republican anger over Syria may not translate directly into support for impeachment, but if more Republicans — especially among the 19 who have thus far announced their retirement — take their names off the “I support Donald Trump” list, they may not be available to man the barricades when the Democrats come to impeach.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump will hold a campaign rally in Minneapolis, his first since the impeachment investigation began.
Sixteen conservative lawyers, including George T. Conway III, the husband of President Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway, called on Thursday for “an expeditious impeachment investigation, vote in the House of Representatives and potential trial in the Senate” for what they called Mr. Trump’s abuse of office.
On Friday, House investigators are due to interview the career diplomat and former American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whose ouster was sought by Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and many in the Trump administration. Despite the White House’s attempts to block cooperation by State Department employees, Ms. Yovanovitch has signaled to House staff members that she is willing to speak to them.
“We believe the acts revealed publicly over the past several weeks are fundamentally incompatible with the president’s oath of office, his duties as commander in chief and his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’” the group wrote.
The Wall Street Journal reported that career staff members at the Office of Management and Budget questioned whether it was legal to delay aid to Ukraine. The White House then gave a political appointee power to keep the aid on hold.
The lawyers included Charles Fried, a Harvard Law School professor and solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, Orin S. Kerr of the University of Southern California and contributor to the popular Volokh Conspiracy website, and Stuart M. Gerson, an assistant attorney general for the civil division under President George Bush.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said today in Kiev that Mr. Trump did not seek to blackmail him over military aid when the two leaders spoke this summer. Mr. Trump and his supporters said Mr. Zelensky’s claim should exonerate the president.
Mr. Trump took to Twitter on Thursday morning, clearly unhappy that Fox News Channel, the conservative media redoubt that he needs to maintain the support of his core voters, has been insufficiently supportive.
George Conway, the husband of Mr. Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, joined 15 other conservative lawyers calling for an “expeditious” impeachment investigation.
The president appears to be incensed with a Fox News poll that showed 51 percent of registered voters support his impeachment and removal from office, up 10 percentage points from July. “Whoever their Pollster is, they suck,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said it was “absolutely not” appropriate for Mr. Trump to seek help from foreign powers for an election.
The president is highlighting divisions at Fox between some of the network’s commentators, such as Andrew Napolitano, and the general line that the House’s impeachment inquiry is not legitimate. That is clear in his own Twitter feed. After attacking Fox for giving Mr. Napolitano a megaphone — “he’s been terrible” — employing Donna Brazile — “who gave Crooked Hillary the debate questions & got fired from @CNN” — and generally venting his displeasure, he then retweeted Maria Bartiromo, a Fox Business anchor who has been broadcasting supportive statements from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Mr. Trump tweeted this morning that Fox News’s pollsters “suck,” after a poll found 51 percent of voters believe that he should be impeached and removed from office; he added that “@FoxNews is also much different than it used to be in the good old days.” William Barr, the attorney general, met privately Wednesday evening with Rupert Murdoch, the mogul whose holdings include Fox News.
But Mr. Trump has more problems with conservative media than just a few Fox personalities. The Drudge Report, which rose to prominence during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, has been remarkably amenable to the impeachment of the current president. On Thursday, its purveyor, Matt Drudge, was amplifying the Fox poll that Mr. Trump objected to, blaring, “FOX SHOCK: 51% WANT TRUMP REMOVED.”
The Impeachment Briefing is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every weeknight.
Mr. Trump reserved the right to do what he wants with the media: “@FoxNews doesn’t deliver for US anymore,” he wrote. “It is so different than it used to be. Oh well, I’m President!”
President Trump repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the House would open a formal impeachment proceeding in response to the whistle-blower’s complaint. Here’s how the impeachment process works.
House committees have issued subpoenas to the White House, the Defense Department, the budget office and other agencies for documents related to the impeachment investigation. Here’s the evidence that has been collected so far.
