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What the Parnas and Fruman plea meant for Kyiv
Summary
A look back at the not-guilty pleas entered by two Giuliani associates, and how they fitted into the wider Trump–Ukraine scandal.
What did a New York courtroom have to do with Ukraine's politics? By 25 October 2019, that question was being asked in Kyiv and Washington alike. Two days earlier, on 23 October 2019, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, had pleaded not guilty at a hearing in New York City.
The charges
Prosecutors accused the two men of funnelling $350,000 in illegal donations to a pro-Trump political committee. They were also accused of sending another $20,000 to former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions. The charges said they acted on behalf of at least one Ukrainian government official.
The men were also described as having aided Giuliani in a search in Ukraine for damaging information on President Trump's political opponents. That link placed them inside the wider Trump–Ukraine scandal.
The wider scandal
The scandal arose from Trump's attempts to press Ukraine to investigate his rival Joe Biden, potentially damaging Biden's campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Giuliani was among the surrogates enlisted for that effort. Trump also blocked a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package, seeking cooperation in return from Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts between the White House and the Ukrainian government culminated in a phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on 25 July 2019.
The not-guilty pleas settled nothing about the charges. They did show that the scandal now involved a criminal case as well as a political one.
