Lev Parnas, an associate of U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, received $1 million from Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who is fighting extradition from Austria to the U.S.
The payment was sent in September by the oligarch’s Swiss lawyer, Ralph Oswald Isenegger, to the bank account of Lev Parnas’ wife Svetlana, U.S. media outlets reported from a court hearing in Parnas’ case on Dec. 17.
Parnas and Igor Fruman, both Soviet-born U.S. citizens, organized meetings with Ukrainian officials for Giuliani as he sought information to discredit Trump’s Democratic rivals. Trump is currently facing impeachment for allegedly abusing his office by trying to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and that former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden engaged in corrupt practices in the country.
In October, Parnas and Fruman were arrested and charged with campaign finance violations. They were released on bail and placed under house arrest.
Prosecutors claimed that Parnas concealed the payment from Firtash. But his lawyer, Joseph Bondy, denied that and said the $1 million were a loan.
Bondy also said Parnas “has absolutely no continuing relationship with Firtash … Parnas has completely burned those bridges,” Reuters reported.
Parnas also has cut ties with the law firm of Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, Talking Points Memo reported citing Bondy.
DiGenova and Toensing are two pro-Trump lawyers who joined the defense team of Firtash in July. The oligarch told the New York Times that the recommendation came from Parnas.
DiGenova and Toensing also hired Parnas as their translator and fixer.
In late August, they obtained an affidavit from former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, who has been one of the main sources of Giuliani’s false narratives.
Read more: Ex-Prosecutor General Shokin defends oligarch Firtash
In written testimony, Shokin reiterated allegations that he had been fired under pressure from Biden to block an investigation into corruption at the Ukrainian energy company where his son, Hunter Biden, worked at the time. Biden indeed called on Ukraine to fire Shokin, a key demand of many Ukrainian politicians, civil society actors and international partners. However, there is no evidence that the former vice president did this for personal benefit.
In the affidavit, Shokin also claimed that Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to block Firtash’s return to Ukraine in December 2015. He said there was no evidence that Firtash had committed any crime.
The U.S. Department of Justice accuses oligarch Firtash of conspiring to bribe officials in India with $18.5 million for a permit to develop titanium mines in the eastern coastal Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The produced titanium was supposed to be sold to Boeing, an airplane manufacturer with headquarters in Chicago.
Arrested in Vienna in 2014, Firtash has been fighting extradition to the U.S. with varying degrees of success. Most recently, an Austrian court and the country’s justice minister allowed his extradition to stand trial in Chicago.
However, Firtash’s defense appealed, arguing that the charges against him in the U.S. were politically motivated and Austrian law prohibits extradition in such cases.
When Parnas and Fruman were arrested in October, they were in an airport and reportedly had one-way tickets to Vienna, where Firtash resides.
Giuliani also recently traveled to the Austrian capital. After his two-day whirlwind trip to Kyiv on Dec. 4-5, he left on a “midnight jet to Vienna,” according to One America News, a right-wing television channel that traveled with him.
Besides helping Trump pursue his political interests and Firtash avoid extradition, Parnas and Fruman appear to have had their own plan. The Associated Press reported that they hoped to have Andriy Kobolev, the CEO of Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz, removed from office and to export U.S. gas to Ukraine.
