Irony – delicious irony.
Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas spent the better part of a year attempting to subordinate America’s foreign policy in Ukraine to the president’s reelection bid. Part and parcel of that effort was a despicable smear campaign aimed at ousting Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and, later, strong-arming Volodymyr Zelensky into launching an investigation into Joe Biden.
For their trouble, Trump got impeached, Giuliani found himself in the crosshairs of US prosecutors (a category of people which used to include him) and Parnas got himself indicted. They never got their investigation announcement on Biden.
But Ukraine did announce an investigation on Thursday – into Whatsapp exchanges between Parnas and Robert Hyde, a Trump donor and Republican Congressional candidate, who, in a series of wild messages, detailed an apparent surveillance operation on Yovanovitch.
The messages included references to the career public servant as a “b–tch”, and Hyde alluded to unspecified things that could be done in Ukraine with bribes.
In an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, Parnas said he didn’t take Hyde’s claims seriously. But Ukraine is taking them seriously – or at least for now.
The country’s Interior Ministry said this, in a statement:
[We] are not interfering in the internal political affairs of the United States. However, the published messages contain facts of possible violations of Ukrainian law and of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, which protect the rights of diplomats on the territory of another state.
Investigators in Ukraine are also looking into reports that Russia hacked Burisma’s computers. On Monday, California-based Area 1 Security said the incident was linked to Russia’s Main Directorate of Military Intelligence, the infamous GRU.
To this day, there is still no evidence whatsoever that implicates Joe or Hunter Biden in wrongdoing.
“It was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. Also, Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger”, Parnas told MSNBC, adding that Trump knew exactly what he was doing in Ukraine. “It was never about corruption”, he told voters, on national television. “President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. … I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president”.
As to Giuliani’s persistent claims that Yovanovitch was corrupt or somehow disloyal, Parnas seemingly dismissed that too. “The only motivation” was to brush her aside to pave way for the Biden probe, he said.
Describing Hyde to Rachel Maddow, Parnas said ol’ Rob was usually drunk. “[He’s] a weird character”, Parnas assessed.
That’s not a good look for Hyde. When Lev Parnas calls you a drunken weirdo, you know you’ve got problems.
“When Lev Parnas calls you a drunken weirdo, you know you’ve got problems.” You know Parnas has been a punching bag of comedians for months now, mostly due to some unfortunate photos of him that play into stereotypes of dumb and drunken East Europeans that have been around a long time in America. I laughed as much as anyone at those pictures, despite being East European myself.
But watching him in the interview with Maddow, I was struck by how low key and thoughtful he was. In his lightly accented American English he came across as not only very credible, but completely lacking in self-aggrandizing tendencies, which Trump and Giuliani display constantly. He also cut to the heart of the impeachment argument, asking sensibly why any of the higher ups in the Ukrainian government would ever have given him the time of day, if they did not completely believe that he did indeed represent the President and his attorney Giuliani.
Spot on.
It is already established that Trump tried to get the Ukraine to publicly investigate Hunter Biden. Trump’s base and the Republicans in the Senate are O.K. with that. Additional facts that corroborate the charges are just noise to those who feel that Trump’s screw-up is not worthy of removal from office. Trump could probably sign a confession “Yeah, sure, of course I put pressure on the Ukrainians to get dirt on the Bidens. Why else would they bother? So what?”, and the Senate trial would have the same outcome.
Parnas has every incentive to portray Hyde as a drunken fool. Whatever legal jeopardy Parnas has for participating in the scheme, it would be many times more serious if Parnas participated in a conspiracy that actually threatened the security of a US official. He would then be looking at serious time. Parnas and Hyde both have every incentive to portray these texts as drunken musings. Do they read that way? Parnas says Hyde was drunk at all times, even 6am. Hyde may be an alcoholic. But I bet there are people who know him who have probably seen him sober at 6am, and many other times. I was surprised the press seems to be taking Parnas at his word about the surveillance texts. He has good reason to lie. So does Hyde. Were the rest of the text messages from Hyde drunken musings and jokes? Or did Hyde just pick one topic for drunken musings? I’m not saying Trump knew about the surveillance. I’m just a skeptic about whether the messages should be ignored.
He may be trying to drop a wall between himself and Hyde.
Leaving Hyde with the rest of the “Wiener’s Circle”. And murder for hire.