[6][7] In October 2021, Parnas was found guilty in U.S. Federal Court on six counts related to illegal donations to the 2020 campaign of Donald Trump.

"[13] In 2019, Parnas served as a translator for a legal case involving Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin and self-admitted Russian mob connections,[14] who is fighting extradition to the U.S. to face bribery charges.

[17] As early as April 2018, Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman began assisting Trump's re-election efforts and they identified Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch as being an obstacle.

According to The New York Times, "Their mission was to find people and information that could be used to undermine the Special Counsel's investigation, and also to damage former Vice President Joseph R.

[21] Over the course of a year beginning in 2018, Parnas and Fruman assisted Giuliani and his associates to contact Ukrainians who were working on finding alleged corruption surrounding Hunter Biden and Burisma.

[26] On October 7, 2019, Dowd informed the Miami Herald newspaper there would be no cooperation, Mike Pompeo made a similar announcement, and State Department employee Charles Kent failed to appear before the House Intelligence Committee.

[27] On October 8, 2019, White House counsel Pat Cipollone issued a document that confirmed that Trump and his administration would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry in any manner.

[28] Parnas and Fruman were arrested on the evening of October 9, 2019, at Dulles International Airport, and charged with planning to direct funds from a foreign government "to U.S. politicians while trying to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations".

[31] In 2018, the operation included Parnas and Fruman donating funds and pledging further additional moneys to an unnamed Congressman, who was allegedly recruited for the campaign to oust her.

In 2018, as the Chairman of the House Rules Committee, Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that Ambassador Yovanovitch should be fired for privately expressing "disdain" for the Trump administration.

[36] On November 22, 2019, Parnas stated to CNN that he would be willing to testify to Congress regarding his, Republican congressman Devin Nunes, Giuliani's and Trump's role in the Ukraine affairs.

[37] Documents released to a watchdog group showed communication took place between Giuliani and Pompeo shortly before Ambassador Yovanovitch was removed from her post.

[38] On January 20, 2020, Bondy filed a motion seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor outside the Justice Department and for U.S. Attorney General William Barr to recuse himself.

[39] The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman recused himself in the Michael Cohen case owing to his political support of Trump.

[42] In a May 2021 letter to federal judge J. Paul Oetken, Bondy wrote he had seen a government chart detailing the extent to which SDNY investigators had acquired communications of parties related to the Parnas case, and asserted: The evidence seized likely includes e-mail, text, and encrypted communications that are either non-privileged or subject to an exception to any potentially applicable privilege, between, inter alia, Rudolph Giuliani, Victoria Toensing, the former President, former Attorney General William P. Barr, high-level members of the Justice Department, Presidential impeachment attorneys Jay Sekulow, Jane Raskin and others, Senator Lindsey Graham, Congressman Devin Nunes and others, relating to the timing of the arrest and indictment of the defendants as to prevent potential disclosures to Congress in the first impeachment inquiry of then-President Donald.

[63] When asked by Rachel Maddow, Parnas claimed that his decision to speak out was made to protect this country from President Trump and his allies, stating that they are all part of one large "cult.

"[64] Included within the documents released by the House in January 2020 were text messages between Parnas and Robert F. Hyde, a Republican candidate for Congress in Connecticut.

The FBI finally visited Hyde to make inquiries on January 16, 2020—the day after the first segment of the interview aired—even though they reportedly had the messages in hand since Parnas's arrest in October 2019.

[67] Hyde claimed he was getting the information he was giving to Parnas from a Belgian citizen named Anthony de Caluwe he had met at GOP functions.

[57] Initially, de Caluwe denied any involvement and then later claimed it was all a "joke" after evidence was released by the House that supported Hyde's assertions.

"[73] Some of the money to potentially fund efforts by Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman appears to have come from a Republican donor and Trump supporter Charles Gucciardo.

Therefore, monies and loans to fund their work in Ukraine on his behalf to win a Federal election appear to be reportable campaign contributions.

[citation needed] On January 24, 2020, ABC News released an audio recording that appeared to be a conversation between Parnas and President Trump.

[80] Apparently, the ABC News article prompted Parnas to search his document cloud where he located the full tape that is over an hour long.

[82][83][84] Parnas testified, in part:[85] The American people have been lied to, by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and various cohorts of individuals in government and media positions.

Congressman Pete Sessions, then-Congressman Devin Nunes, Senator Ron Johnson and many others understood they were pushing a false narrative.

[87] Parnas and Fruman visited Israel in the summer of 2018 as a part of a delegation, led by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and joined by Anthony Scaramucci.