There were apparently hopeful plans that President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani would become the public face of Fraud Guarantee, the company co-founded by indicted Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and David Correia.
Those plans included getting Giuliani to do an infomercial that would air on cable-news channels, the Daily Beast reports:
According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Parnas and Correia had plans to expand Giuliani’s role with the company. As of early this year, they were looking to make him into Fraud Guarantee’s spokesman and public face.
Both sources described a key part of the plan: a television infomercial featuring Giuliani extolling the virtues of Fraud Guarantee and its services. Parnas and Correia wanted the ad campaign to start airing on U.S. cable-news channels shortly after Giuliani was finished representing Trump in matters pertaining to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation. The probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election concluded earlier this year.
The story didn’t specify which “cable-news channels” that Parnas and Correia had in mind for an ad campaign, but we can think of at least one prime candidate.
Parnas, the Ukrainian-Floridian co-founder of the Fraud Guarantee (a company the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he was paid $500,000 to advise), was arrested on Oct. 9, along with Igor Fruman. Giuliani said that Fraud Guarantee retained the services of his management and security firm, Giuliani Partners LLC, in August 2018 to consult on business technology and provide legal advice on regulatory issues. The Parnas and Fruman arrests occurred at Dulles Airport in Virginia, from where they were attempting to leave the U.S. via a one-way ticket. Correia and Andrey Kukushkin were also ensnared in the criminal probe. All defendants have pleaded not guilty.
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 alleged campaign finance violations. Correia and Kukushkin were charged with one count of conspiracy.
Fraud Guarantee, a fraud-insurance company Parnas created in 2013, was a way to escape a checkered past, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Parnas had been accused of fraud in 2011 and, in an attempt to clean up Google search results associated with his name, started a company with fraud in its name. He reportedly made it the mission statement of the business to fight fraud and prevent people from falling victim to it:
Messrs. Parnas and Correia set up Fraud Guarantee in a Boca Raton office park. Mr. Parnas picked the name in part to clean up his Google search results, ensuring that the word “fraud” and his own name would be paired in a positive light, said people familiar with the matter.
Some associates questioned the name, but it worked: Negative search results about the bridge loan and Edgetech soon dropped in Google’s rankings, one of the people said.
Other infomercials featured Giuliani in the past, but it doesn’t seem the Giuliani-Fraud Guarantee idea ever got off the ground. One wonders what the pitch would be: You’re gonna like the way you didn’t get defrauded, I guarantee it.
[Image via Fox News screengrab]
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