An attorney for an indicted Rudy Giuliani business associate sent House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) a message late Thursday: “Lev Remembers.”
Joseph Bondy, who recently gave information to CNN that triggered a Nunes lawsuit, tweeted a video of Nunes on Fox News saying that he didn’t know if he talked to Lev Parnas.
On Fox News, Nunes said he wasn’t sure if he talked to Parnas but was sure he’s never met him. Nunes also said “we have not been able to confirm” whether there was a phone call with Parnas.
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum pressed Nunes on this.
“What did you discuss with Lev Parnas?” MacCallum asked.
“Well, I don’t even know because I never met Parnas,” Nunes answered.
“So you never had any phone conversation with him,” MacCallum responded.
“We have not been able to confirm that yet,” Nunes said.
“You don’t think you would remember if you had a conversation?” MacCallum asked.
“You have to remember, you have to remember, we are the House Intelligence Committee Oversight Committee, okay,” Nunes replied. “We get calls from people everyday. All walks of life. I get ’em from all over the world, allies and people who aren’t our allies. In this case, I just don’t know. I have to get my phone records.”
In response to the interview, Bondy said late Thursday, “Hey @DevinNunes —Lev remembers what you spoke about. You don’t remember? #LetLevSpeak.”
Calls logs released in the House Intel Committee’s impeachment report showed that Nunes, Parnas, and Giuliani spoke by phone. The logs from April 12, 2019 show Parnas called John Solomon — the then-Hill columnist who brought to the mainstream the Biden-Burisma narrative being pushed by President Donald Trump, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Giuliani, Parnas, and more. The logs then show Parnas had a call with Nunes that lasted for more than eight minutes. Parnas then called Solomon back.
The “-1” number that showed up in logs appears to belong to the president.
Nunes is suing over claims that he went to Austria in 2018 and met Shokin, and communicated with Parnas in Dec. 2018 “around the time of the ‘Vienna Trip.'” Nunes’s attorney said the trip “never happened.”
Bondy previously said that, in light of the call records, Nunes should have recused himself from the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings.
“Devin Nunes, you should have recused yourself at the outset of the #HIC #ImpeachingHearings. #LetLevSpeak,” he said. Another Parnas lawyer, Ed MacMahon, commented on the contents of the Nunes-Parnas calls.
“They weren’t talking about where to find sushi in Kyiv,” he said. “Lev is in a position to fill in all these blanks and explain what actually happened with all these phone calls. But he remains under indictment in the Southern District of New York, and he needs protections to tell his story. He needs immunity.”
It remains to be seen if such immunity would be granted.
Parnas, the Ukrainian-Floridian co-founder of the company Fraud Guarantee (a company Giuliani said he was paid $500,000 to advise), was arrested on Oct. 9, along with Igor Fruman. The arrests occurred at Dulles Airport in Virginia, from where they were attempting to leave the U.S. via a one-way ticket. David Correia, a co-founder of Fraud Guarantee, and Andrey Kukushkin were also ensnared in the criminal probe.
Parnas and Fruman were each hit with two counts of conspiracy, one count of making false statements, and one count of falsification of records. They also just so happened to be instrumental in Giuliani’s efforts to convince the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. The charges are related to a “scheme to funnel foreign money” to Republican candidates (alleged campaign finance violations). Correia and Kukushkin were charged with one count of conspiracy. All defendants have pleaded not guilty.
[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]