https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikesallah/ukraine-spending-trump-parnas-fruman


A screenshot shows Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman meeting with President Donald Trump and other Republicans in Washington, DC

Bank records reveal a whirlwind of spending at high-end restaurants, an infamous strip club, and five-star hotels by the two little-known operatives who waged a back-channel campaign with Rudy Giuliani.

Michael Sallah BuzzFeed News Reporter

Emma Loop BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on October 9, 2019, at 12:10 p.m. ET

For Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian American businessman who joined Rudy Giuliani in a back-channel campaign to unearth damaging information about Joe Biden, the money kept flowing.

There was a $1,410 charge to a Palm Beach limousine service and nearly $20,000 in expenses at Trump hotels in Washington, DC, and New York. There were bills running to hundreds of dollars at exclusive restaurants such as Novikov in London and BLT Prime in Washington. During one of his many trips to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, there was a $657 charge at Tootsie, the popular strip club in the heart of the city.

At the same time that he was facing court judgments for hundreds of thousands in personal debts, the 47-year-old political operative was traveling like a freewheeling CEO as he met with Ukrainian prosecutors and other officials.

BuzzFeed News obtained unprecedented access to scores of bank records from private business accounts controlled by Parnas and his partner, Igor Fruman, as they carried out a campaign now at the center of the first presidential impeachment inquiry in a generation.

Three congressional committees have already sent the men letters demanding records about their efforts to help President Donald Trump. Coming just a week after those inquiries, these financial documents — a potential road map of the duo’s travel and the sources of any funding they received — are likely to attract the interest of investigators.

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