'Giuliani never cared': Associate Lev Parnas says Rudy knew Biden lies came from Russia

Lev Parnas, the former associate to Rudy Giuliani who helped him push purportedly false claims about the Biden family taking international bribes, said on MSNBC Wednesday that everyone in his circle were aware they were being fed Russian disinformation — and didn't care.

This comes after Parnas asserted that he told the FBI as far back as 2019 that Alexander Smirnov, the "informant" arrested by the FBI this month for pushing false allegations about Biden, was not telling the truth.

"I built a relationship with a very big Trump lobbyist, Brian Ballard, at the time," said Parnas. "A combination between the donations and the relationship with him, I was able to become a very big insider in Trump's inner circle. I met Giuliani in the summertime of 2018. When I say met, I had met him several times previously. That's when we got pretty close. We started spending time every day, and I could tell Ukraine was always on his mind. At that time he was looking at Ukraine for the Paul Manafort stuff, the black ledger and certain stuff."

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"One evening we were sitting in the Grand Havana Room, and Giuliani got a call from Art Schwartz, I think it was, one of his investigators at the time that was doing research on Ukraine, and had some breaking information," said Parnas. "He had a whistleblower that was basically telling him information about Hunter Biden on the board of directors and other information about the black ledger. We were sitting, me and Igor [Fruman], with him, having drinks. Rudy started talking about what he was on the phone about with us. When he started talking, he started talking that we knew a lot of the players, we heard a lot of the same information and we were eager to participate in the conversation. Within a half hour—"

"This whole idea, the black ledger stuff, the allegation was supposed to be that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, when Joe Biden was vice president, were taking bribes to protect this company, Burisma, that Hunter Biden sat on the board of," said anchor Joy Reid. "Is that the same story you were also peddling, and do you now say that story was made up?"

"Absolutely. That was the same story," said Parnas. "I've been saying it was made up for the past four years. Since my arrest I've been screaming that it was made up. Not only was it made up, I've shown the world that the people doing it were Russian agents, and Giuliani never cared, [John] Solomon never cared, Fox News never cared, as long as it fit their narrative. That was the information that was pushed."

"Who fed you that story?" asked Reid.

"It was a bunch of people," he replied. "Most of them had ties to Russian oligarchs or Russian agents or Russian government officials. Some of them were actual Ukrainian officials that also had ties. At the end it was all the same people pushing the same story that was coming from the same source: Russia."

Watch the video below or at the link right here.

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