Giuliani Pal Lev Parnas Tells Comer He’s Willing to Testify Biden Corruption Probe Has ‘No Merit’

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File

Lev Parnas, the former Rudy Giuliani associate who was central to Trump’s scheme to find dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine, sent top House Republicans a letter Tuesday saying he was willing to testify that their probe into corruption allegations regarding President Joe Biden and his family has “no merit.”

Parnas, who was sentenced to 20 months in jail for illegal campaign contributions to Donald Trump, detailed his connection to the former president’s efforts to smear Biden – his then-likely general election opponent.

“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 claims in the letter. “Yet every time I went on these trips and conducted these interviews, I came up with nothing.”

Trump famously tried to pressure Ukraine ahead of the 2020 presidential election to announce a corruption investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, who had business in the country that has long been a source of controversy. A recorded phone call in which Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an investigation led to Trump’s first impeachment in the House in December 2019.

Parnas further explained his involvement in the scheme:

From November 2018 to October 2019, I was a key participant in and witness to these efforts; in every event described below, I was either physically present in the room with the people involved, on phone calls with Guiliani and the individuals in question, often interpreting between the Ukrainian and English languages, or communicating directly with Giuliani about the situation. Please consider that the facts I state here have never changed from when I first submitted to Congress everything I knew in November 2019.

Parnas continued, “Throughout all these months of work, the extensive campaigns and networking done by Trump allies and 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. Never, during any of my communications with Ukrainian officials or connections to Burisma, did any of them confirm or provide concrete facts linking the Bidens to illegal activities.”

“In fact, they asked me multiple times why our team was so concerned with this idea. The truth is that everyone, from Giuliani and the BLT Team to Devin Nunes and his colleagues, to the people at FOX News, knew that these allegations against the Bidens were false. There has never been any factual evidence, only conspiracy theories spread by people who knew exactly what they were doing,” Parnas adds, concluding:

With all due respect, Chairman Comer, the narrative you are seeking for this investigation has been proven false many times over, by a wide array of respected sources. There is simply no merit to investigating this matter any further.
…
I am willing to testify under oath in Congress regarding any of these matters, and answer any questions that you might have, or provide you with any texts or correspondence in these situations I have described in this letter.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) was asked about Parnas’s letter on Tuesday and, according to the HuffPost, said, “I don’t think that that’s credible.”