Rudy Giuliani, the private lawyer of US President Donald Trump, is said to have played a significant role in the Ukraine affair. Now two clients of his consulting firm have been targeted by the US judiciary. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested. You are charged with alleged violations of campaign finance law. Businessmen from the Ukraine and Belarus should also be involved in the affair.
The indictment, made by a panel of juries and sent to AFP, does not refer to attempts by Trump and Giuliani to obtain potentially compromising material from Ukraine about Trump's domestic rival Joe Biden and his son. However, Parnas and Fruman Giuliani support efforts to persuade Ukrainian authorities to investigate the Bidens. They were due to appear in front of a judge in Virginia state on Thursday.
The foreign origin of their campaign donations would have veiled the two businessmen, it is said in the indictment. With the funds they would have wanted to buy "potential influence" on the candidates and campaigns. However, the candidates, who were not specifically named in the indictment, did not know that the funds originally came from abroad.
Donations in favor of Trump
Under the names of Parnas and Fruman, donations were made to US Republican campaigns, including Trump's. Parnas posted photos in the online network Facebook in May 2018, showing him and Fruman with Trump in the White House. That same month, a $ 325,000 donation ($ 295,000 today) attributed to Parnas and Fruman went to a campaign organization backing Trump's re-election.
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The Democrats are interested in the role that Parnas and Fruman played in Giuliani's effort to make material about the Biden. As part of their investigation in the House of Representatives on a possible impeachment trial against Trump they had issued subpoenas to both businessmen. As reported, among other things, the "Washington Post" Parnas and Fruman have arranged a meeting in New York between Giuliani and the former Ukrainian Attorney General Yuri Lutsenko.
In a telephone conversation on July 25, Trump had urged Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Selenskyj to investigate the Bidens. Trump and Giuliani suspect Biden's son, Hunter, of having been implicated in corruption during his previous work for a Ukrainian gas company, without presenting any concrete evidence. In turn, they accuse the father of protecting his son from Ukrainian corruption investigations in his former post as vice-president.
For their part, the Democrats accuse Trump of trying to obtain material for the election campaign against Biden in Ukraine. They see this as a serious abuse of the presidential office. Biden belongs to the narrower favorite circle among the Democrats for the candidacy against Trump in November 2020.