Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two sleezy bagmen for disgraced and deranged Trump consigliere Rudy "Ghouliani" Giuliani were nabbed by the FBI just before they boarded a Lufthansa flight to Vienna with one-way tickets last Wednesday. While Vienna is a beautiful place to visit, Parnas and Fruman weren't going there on holiday. It's certain that they were going there to meet their other "client," a fugitive Ukrainian oligarch named Dmytro Firtash.
Firtash, who is wanted by U.S. law enforcement for bribery and fighting extradition, is closely aligned with Russian organized crime, and was a player in the corrupt, pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown by a pro-Western revolution in 2014. Firtash is also the financier behind the dealings of Parnas and Froman, who were funneling sums of money illegally to Rethuglican groups, including a pro-Trump PAC. Some of the grift also found its way into Parnas' appropriately-named company "Fraud Guarantee" which was paying Giuliani for "consulting."
Making the growing web of corruption around Giuliani even more sinister is the legal team representing Firtash: Fux TV lawyers and far-right bottom feeders Joseph DiGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing. This duo claim to have hired Parnas as part of their legal team as an "interpreter," e.g. "what's this guy's price?" With them involved, there are certainly more shady dealings to uncover.
This is just the beginning of an unravelling scam involving pro-Russian, far-right figures here and abroad to corrupt the 2020 elections and to advance both Trump's campaign and the Kremlin's expansionist, geopolitical goals. Stay tuned.
(photo: Associated Press)
