Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…
I’ve read the indictment of two Giuliani cronies, arrested as they were evidently attempting to flee the country, and Rick Hasen’s summary is excellent.
I’ll try to summarize here what happened though. It wasn’t immediately clear to me that it had anything to do with what Trump will be impeached for, but it actually does, and it’s damning.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are Ukrainian-born US citizens and were Giuliani’s connection to Ukraine when he visited there to try and dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
Parnas and Fruman were also the conduits of significant amounts of money from various foreign (Russian) sources, which they gave to US politicians (notably Pete Sessions and Trump) directly and through their PACs, disguising the source by creating fake businesses (thus violating federal election law).
One of the things the true source of the foreign money wanted was to oust the US Ambassador to Ukraine (Marie Louise Yovanovitch), which request Trump eventually delivered on, supported by a letter from Pete Sessions. Rudy and Trump identified Yovanovitch as an impediment to Giuliani getting Ukrainian prosecutors to go along with the Joe Biden plan — Trump even calls Yovanovitch “bad news” in his now infamous phone call to Zelensky.
So it seems like Stupid Watergate has just found its burglars.
