Former Giuliani Associate Lev Parnas Offers To Testify On Efforts To Smear Biden Family

WASHINGTON — A key figure in former President Donald Trump’s scheme to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden warned Republicans on Tuesday that they’ll never find the dirt they’re looking for.

In a 10-page letter to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) obtained by HuffPost, former Trump ally Lev Parnas outlined his own efforts to seek negative information about Biden and his son Hunter Biden from several Ukrainian sources in 2019.

“Throughout all these months of work, the extensive campaigns and networking done by Trump allies and [Rudy] Giuliani associates, including the enormously thorough interviews and assignments that I undertook, there has never been any evidence that Hunter or Joe Biden committed any crimes related to Ukrainian politics,” Parnas wrote.

Parnas is a Ukrainian American businessman and former associate of Giuliani, who acted as Trump’s personal attorney during his term in the White House. Parnas was sentenced to prison in 2022 for multiple offenses, including campaign finance and wire fraud violations, and is now under house arrest.

In 2019, Trump pressured Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, whom he rightly worried would be his strongest Democratic opponent in the next year’s presidential election. Biden’s son had served on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2016 when Biden, as vice president, pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor.

Democrats impeached Trump for abusing the power of his office to get dirt on a political opponent. During the proceedings, State Department officials testified that ousting the prosecutor reflected the interests of the U.S. government, not Biden personally, and that the prosecutor was corrupt and dishonest.

But Republicans have never accepted the foreign policy establishment’s consensus. And as part of a sprawling investigation into the Biden family, Comer’s committee this year has pursued an unconfirmed rumor that Biden sought a $5 million bribe from a Burisma executive in exchange for an unspecified official act.

Parnas told HuffPost earlier this month that he and Giuliani had tried to get the same sort of dirt out of Ukraine for a year and a half, “and we could never get it because it was obviously not true.” On Tuesday, Parnas declined to comment further, referring a query to his lawyer.

In his letter, Parnas described his efforts on behalf of Giuliani and offered to testify under oath.

“Giuliani tasked me with traveling to Ukraine throughout March, April, and May 2019 to interview different people who had promised to give us information and evidence including records of bribes, bank records, and incriminating tapes,” Parnas wrote. “Yet every time I went on these trips and conducted these interviews, I came up with nothing.”

Parnas also repeated his earlier assertion that he and Giuliani were told in the spring of 2019 about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, long before material from the laptop came to wide attention ahead of the 2020 election.

The letter urged Comer to “abandon this effort to investigate the Bidens” — a highly unlikely outcome — calling it “nothing more than a wild goose chase.” In addition to alleged Ukrainian bribes, Comer has targeted Hunter Biden’s work for foreign nationals from Romania and China.

Comer’s committee is set to hear testimony Wednesday from an IRS agent who said the Justice Department slow-walked an investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged failure to pay taxes. The younger Biden plans to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges in court next week.

Asked about Parnas’ letter Tuesday, Comer said, “I don’t think that that’s credible.” In a separate statement, Comer said through a spokesperson that his investigations have nothing to do with Giuliani.

“It’s past time for Democrats and their allies to stop covering for the Bidens and instead follow the facts,” Comer said.