https://www.thedailybeast.com/lev-parnas-i-felt-like-my-family-left-me



The Soviet-born businessman at the center of Rudy Giuliani’s dirt-digging crusade in Ukraine tells The Daily Beast he’s determined to speak out despite backlash.

Betsy Swan
Political Reporter

Published Jan. 16, 2020 6:59PM ET

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Lev Parnas––an ex-associate of Rudy Giuliani’s who’s at the heart of the impeachment scandal––said he’s determined to keep speaking out about his work in Trump World regarding Ukraine despite backlash.

Parnas sat with Rachel Maddow for an MSNBC interview that aired Wednesday, and then with CNN’s Anderson Cooper for another interview set to run Thursday night. In his conversation with Maddow, he said President Donald Trump knew all about his efforts to pressure Kyiv to give him political favors. And he said that Giuliani told Ukrainian leaders that Parnas specifically spoke on the president’s behalf. The comments drew attention from Capitol Hill, and Democratic Congressional investigators have pointed to them as good reason for the Senate to call witnesses in its impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Parnas told The Daily Beast that his former friends’ reaction to his arrest has strengthened his resolve about speaking out. Parnas said that after he and his associate Igor Fruman were arrested at Dulles Airport on Oct. 9 and charged with campaign finance violations, he was disappointed with silence from Rudy Giuliani. He said that Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing––a Trump-friendly husband-wife legal team with deep and longstanding ties in Washington’s conservative legal world––also kept mum about their relationship with him. The silence, he said, left him feeling betrayed.

“I felt like my family left me,” he said.

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