Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman whose involvement in helping the president's personal attorney seek out kompromat on Joe Biden in Ukraine is at the center of an impeachment inquiry, is reportedly prepared to testify to Congress about Rep. Devin Nunes meeting with a Ukrainian official as part of the same dirt-digging mission.
Nunes, the top-ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has been a staunch defender of President Trump throughout impeachment hearings. But Joseph A. Bondy, an attorney representing Parnas, has said his client has information about Nunes himself being directly involved in at least some aspects of the political pressure campaign for which Trump is under scrutiny, according to CNN.
The news comes after The Daily Beast broke the news earlier this week that Parnas helped Nunes arrange meetings in Europe late last year to investigate the origins of the Russia probe.
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Parnas has said he also helped connect Nunes to Ukrainians who could provide information on Biden and Democrats in Ukraine. According to Bondy, Parnas said he was informed by Ukraine's former top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, that he met with Nunes in December, CNN reports.
Shokin is the same Ukrainian official whose claims of wrongdoing by Joe Biden have been touted as proof by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies that the president was right to ask Ukrainian authorities to pursue an investigation into Biden, his potential political rival in the 2020 election. Shokin, who has claimed he was forced out as Ukraine's prosecutor general by then-Vice President Biden in 2016 as part of a corrupt cover-up, was widely seen by other Western governments as hindering anti-corruption efforts in the country prior to his dismissal.
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