A heavily redacted application for a search and seizure warrant was made public Tuesday detailing the request to search nine electronic devices belonging to Rudy Giuliani's former associate Lev Parnas on Oct. 21, 2019, shortly before he was indicted. The warrant was released after an application by the New York Times.
Parnas helped Giuliani connect to Ukranian figures in an attempt to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden's son, Hunter. He was convicted on several charges, including fraud and campaign finance violations. Biden at the time was considered Donald Trump's biggest election rival.
Parnas was arrested along with fellow Giuliani henchman Igor Fruman in 2019 and accused of setting up a shell company to funnel hundreds of thousands in Russian donations to Republican candidates. He was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison.
Parnas was also subpoenaed to give evidence in the impeachment hearing of Trump that involved the then-president's "perfect call" to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019, in which Trump congratulated the new president on his campaign win. The conversation turned to what Ukraine needed from the U.S. and when the aid already allocated by Congress would be sent.
That's when Trump demanded, "I would like you to do us a favor though," which the House decided was an example of bribery and was thus impeachable.
By the end of November 2019, the feds were eyeing charges against Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Trump's lawyer at the time. The potential charges stemmed from his work with Parnas and Fruman, who also served as the former New York mayor's henchmen in his plot to dig up dirt on then-Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine.
While the affidavit from the FBI agent walked through the campaign finance charges, it also explained some of the connections to Parnas and the work he was suspected of helping Giuliani with his Biden investigation.
The warrant makes it clear that they were publicizing allegations about a "Vice-President."
National security expert Marcy Wheeler, who made annotations in the document upload, also posted another screen capture of the affidavit, which gives an account of the "perfect call" with Zelensky.
"On July 25, 2019, President Trump spoke to Ukraine President [redacted]. According to a memorandum of the call, which the White House released publicly, President Trump noted that '[t]he former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the (sic) Ukraine were bad news.' He also praised a 'very good prosecutor,' which appears to be a reference to [redacted] who was still in place at the time following [redacted] election but subsequently removed from office, or possibly [redacted] the former prosecutor."
The details also claim that Giuliani, Parnas, and others "worked with a journalist, [redacted] and [redacted], to mount an aggressive public media campaign to remove [redacted]." Given the context above this is likely about removing former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
