A federal judge allowed Giuliani associate Lev Parnas to hand over the contents of an iPhone and other documents to the House Intelligence Committee in a Friday morning order.
Manhattan federal district judge Paul Oetken granted an unopposed request from Parnas to share the contents of the iPhone that Parnas was carrying at the time of his October 2019 arrest in a jetway at Dulles Airport on campaign finances charges. Parnas will also be allowed to share documents that the FBI seized from his home.
Parnas and his longtime associate Igor Fruman face charges related to an alleged scheme to funnel foreign money and excess contributions into GOP campaign coffers.
Since his indictment, however, Parnas has shared some of what he knows with the public through his attorneys, saying he feels slighted after Trump claimed not to know him. Parnas had spent the past two years with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, helping the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York make contacts in Ukraine in a bid to generate political information helpful to President Trump.
Along the way, Parnas was hired by Ukrainian gas billionaire Dmytro Firtash. Prosecutors said that Parnas received a $1 million unsecured loan from Firtash’s attorney in September 2019.
Both Parnas and the House Intelligence Committee have said that the south Florida businessman has produced documents to the impeachment inquiry.
Joseph Bondy, Parnas’s attorney in the case, tweeted that his client would continue to petition the judge to allow him to transfer information to the House as the government continues to produce more evidence before trial.
Earlier this morning, the Court granted Lev Parnas’ request to allow production of certain materials to HPSCI in the Impeachment Inquiry, which we are doing. As the Government produces additional materials, we will seek similar judicial Orders. #LetLevSpeak #LevRemembers pic.twitter.com/7j0khrJWMV
— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) January 3, 2020
