Giuliani Associates Reportedly Tried to Get Previous President of Ukraine to Open Investigations

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In addition to all the testimony from people in the White House and State Department about a Ukraine pressure campaign, there’s new reporting that there was an additional push, months earlier, for those investigations by associates of Rudy Giuliani.

Those associates are none other than Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two men arrested and indicted on campaign finance charges.

Previous reporting indicated Parnas and Fruman were already part of the pressure campaign pushed by Giuliani, but now the Wall Street Journal is reporting on a meeting they had with then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko this year before the election:

Months before President Trump pressed Ukraine’s newly installed president to investigate Joe Biden’s son and alleged 2016 U.S. election interference, two associates of Rudy Giuliani urged Ukraine’s prior president to announce similar probes in exchange for a state visit to Washington, according to people familiar with the matter…

Mr. Lutsenko also attended the February meeting, the people said. Mr. Poroshenko didn’t ultimately announce that he was opening those investigations. Mr. Lutsenko, the prosecutor, in March said he was investigating the Bidens and election interference, but in May said he had no evidence of wrongdoing.

Poroshenko lost the election, of course, to Volodymyr Zelensky, whose call with President Donald Trump months later has now led to the impeachment investigation.

Parnas and Fruman have come up in the testimony released thus far, and per the New York Times, Parnas has been “opening a dialogue with congressional impeachment investigators and accusing the president of falsely denying their relationship.”