GOP senator denies knowing Lev Parnas: ‘Rudy gets around and he has some cosmopolitan friends’

Speaking on Fox News radio earlier this month, Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) accused Democrats of orchestrating recent revelations from former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas to come out just as President Trump's impeachment trial kicked off. But Braun's words are coming back to haunt him, thanks to some artful trolling by Parnas's lawyer Joseph Bondy, who posted a photo this Monday of Braun posing with Giuliani and Parnas.

&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flawandcrime.com%2Fhigh-profile%2Fyeah-isnt-that-something-gop-senator-explains-why-he-showed-up-in-photo-with-parnas%2F

"Here’s a nice shot of the latest @GOP senator/juror—Mike Braun of Indiana—afraid to call Lev Parnas as a witness at the impeachment trial, posing with, of course, Lev Parnas and @RudyGiuliani," Bondy tweeted.

Braun was recently asked about the photo again on Fox News this week, and doubled down to Fox host Bill Hemmer, saying the photo was taken before the election and is just an example of the many photos he takes with people he doesn't know at political events.

"That was back in the campaign a month or so before the election ... and a grassroots supporter said that Rudy Giuliani is coming in to do a cameo appearance at one of the campaign stops," Braun replied. "And of course I remember that but do not remember [Parnas] ... all I can tell you is Rudy gets around and he's got some cosmopolitan friends."

Braun tweeted out a clip of his Fox interview, writing that the rally Lev Parnas attended "was organized by the Indiana GOP, was widely publicized, open to the press and there are plenty of pictures of me with people I don’t know. I do not know Lev Parnas or have any relationship with him and to imply anything else is false."