There seems to be a lot of reporting on Lev Parnas today, for example from Maddowblog:
In early October, the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump “repeatedly involved” Vice President Mike Pence in the Ukraine scheme, including an instance in which the president “instructed Pence not to attend the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in May – an event White House officials had pushed to put on the vice president’s calendar – when Ukraine’s new leader was seeking recognition and support from Washington.”
Yesterday, Rachel [Maddow] explored this in more detail with Lev Parnas, a Rudy Giuliani associate involved with executing the Ukraine scheme, and he said he’d communicated to Ukrainian officials that Pence would not attend Zelensky’s inauguration unless he agreed to announce an anti-Biden investigation.
The day after Parnas’ meeting with a top Zelensky aide, Pence’s trip was scrapped.
Parnas also said Vice President Mike Pence’s planned trip to attend Zelenskiy’s inauguration in May was canceled because the Ukrainians did not agree to the demand for an investigation of the Bidens. “Oh, I know 100 percent. It was 100 percent,” he said.
Asked whether Pence was aware of a “quid pro quo” around the visit, Parnas replied by quoting Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who said during the House impeachment inquiry: “Everybody was in the loop.”
Maddow said her show asked for comment from Pence and had not received a response.
There’s many more such stories out there.
While it’s tempting to take this seriously, and given the corruption of Trump and many of his nominees to posts all the way up to Cabinet level, in all honesty I should like to see some independent confirmations of Parnas’ assertions. Right now it just seems to be his word. Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) agrees with me:
In short, for the last 18 months, Parnas has played a key part in creating the right wing echo chamber, one that — particularly because the addled Rudy is a trusted advisor — forms a key part of how Trump understands the world. One way Parnas did that was by recruiting Ukrainians who were, for very crass reasons, willing to tell Trump and the rest of the frothy right what they wanted to hear, even though it was assuredly not true. …
Last night’s interview [with Rachel Maddow] continued that grift, only he moved to spin an echo chamber for the left this time. He emphasized — and Maddow predictably responded — some of the key allegations Democrats most want to be true. Mike Pence is closely involved, Parnas revealed, and while nothing he revealed would amount to impeachable conduct, Democrats immediately latched onto the possibility it would be. Everyone was involved, Parnas confirmed, including Devin Nunes and Bill Barr. It was all about Biden, Parnas almost certainly lied.
Seeing as he’s under indictment, this would be fairly ballsy, but not unheard of. The Democrats and other Trump-despisers would be best advised not to have a collective orgasm over anything Parnas reveals until consilience[1] is achieved.
1 Consilience is a term for strong conclusion drawn from independent lines of evidence, usually used in science and historical studies.
