When 2 of Rudy Giuliani's associates were arrested last week and charged with funneling foreign money into political campaigns, big questions lingered: Which foreigners were they working for, and what was their ultimate goal?
OligarchParnas and Fruman were advocating on his behalf as they pitched a natural gas deal, according to an American executive briefed on the meeting. And Firtash produced a document that Giuliani has used to attack former Vice President Joe Biden.
"I'm not even sure the president is aware of him," Giuliani said."I think if you asked the president, 'Who is Dmytro Firtash?' He would say 'I don't know.' As far as I know, we've never discussed him." At the same time, the oligarch was playing a key role in the effort by Parnas, Fruman and Giuliani to hunt for dirt on Donald Trump's political opponents in Ukraine.
A source familiar with Firtash's operation said Firtash, who lives in Vienna, questioned that account, noting that Firtash has a large staff that includes excellent professional translators."Never was there a need for a translator," the source said. Toensing responded that Parnas was her personal translator in legal matters because she needed her own.
Weissmann did not respond to a request for comment. A source directly familiar with the matter says there was nothing inappropriate about the negotiations, which amounted to a prosecutor seeking help from a potential witness in a legal jam — something that happens every day in the American legal system. In the end, there was no Mueller deal with Firtash, the source said.
That same year, Firtash acknowledged to the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine that he got his start in business with the permission of a notorious Russian crime lord, according to a classified State Department cable. Other U.S. cables say Firtash made part of his fortune through sweetheart natural gas deals between Russia and the Ukraine. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Toensing and diGenova, told NBC News the allegations in the Wicker letter are"false, disparaging and defamatory.
The indictment says that that Parnas and Fruman, along with their co-conspirators, hid the scheme from the candidates and campaigns to which they donated. As NBC News reported October 17, they told Fovorov that they wanted Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev removed and Fovorov to take his place, the sources said. Kobolev had won high praise from U.S. and European officials for his anti-corruption efforts.
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