Mr. Parnas Wants to Go to Washington for Impeachment Trial
Mr. Parnas Wants to Go to Washington for Impeachment Proceedings
(Bloomberg) -- Lev Parnas, the former Trump supporter who is now seeking to help Democrats’ efforts to remove the president, wants to witness the impeachment proceedings in person.
The Ukrainian-American businessman asked a judge Tuesday for permission to travel to Washington on Wednesday to attend the president’s trial. Parnas is out on bail facing charges of laundering foreign funds for U.S. political campaigns and masking the source of political contributions.
In order to attend the proceedings, Parnas would have to travel from Florida to New York to have his GPS monitoring device removed, so he could enter the Senate gallery, his lawyer wrote the judge. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office provided tickets for Parnas and his lawyer to attend the session, according to the letter.
U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken approved the travel, but denied Parnas’s request to have the GPS monitoring device removed. Electronics are not allowed in the galleries.
But his lawyer, Joseph Bondy, tweeted late Tuesday night “although we couldn’t arrange to have Lev Parnas watch the trial with us because his GPS ankle monitor is not allowed, Lev will join us in DC tomorrow to show support for a fair trial, with witnesses & evidence.”
Parnas was involved in efforts to dig up political dirt in Ukraine on Joe Biden, one of Trump’s main political rivals, and pushed for the removal of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from Ukraine. Since being charged, Parnas has spoken about the plot on national television and released a video of a dinner he attended where Trump appears to tell associates to “get rid of” the ambassador.
To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Schneider in Los Angeles at jschneider5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Tina Davis, John Harney
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.