Trump White House would 'block any attempt to include testimony from Lev Parnas' in Senate trial: report

Lev Parnas, the indicted one-time henchman for Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, has indicated that he is willing to testify under oath about his efforts to shake down the Ukrainian government to help President Donald Trump get reelected.

However, the Wall Street Journal reports that "White House officials would also block any attempt to include testimony from Lev Parnas in the Senate trial," although it's not clear on what legal grounds they could use to block his testimony, as Parnas was never a White House employee.

Parnas last week turned over documents to Congress showing his central role in both pushing out former American ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and also pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation that would be damaging to former Vice President Joe Biden.

In followup interviews with the media, Parnas claimed that Trump knew exactly what he and his associates were trying to do by shaking down Ukraine to get the country to investigate his political opponents. Parnas also indicated that he and Giuliani had directly told the Ukrainians that they would not get any more military aid unless Zelensky announced the investigation.