According to a report from Politico, one of the two men taken into custody for campaign finance violations — and who has been connected to President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani — made an appearance at a private 2016 Election Night party and identified himself as a friend of the then-Republican presidential nominee.
Noting that Trump has distanced himself from Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were both arrested attempting to flee the country two days ago, the report suggests his relationship with at least one of them may go back three years.
“In fact, Lev Parnas described himself to a foreign correspondent at the cash-bar event in midtown Manhattan as a friend of the president-elect who didn’t live far from his South Florida winter home,” Politico reports, based on an item in Le Figaro, France’s oldest daily newspaper.
The report goes on to state, “Parnas arrived at Trump’s November 2016 election night party, which was held in a ballroom at the Midtown Hilton, with two other men in suits and their heavily made-up wives.”
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“The Ukrainian-born businessman told the paper that a friend from his hometown of Boca Raton, Fla., had hosted several fundraising events for Trump and that his daughter had traveled around the state singing on the candidate’s behalf. It is not clear what friend Parnas was referring to,” Politico reports, adding, “The new detail connecting Trump and Parnas at the same election night party in November 2016 raises fresh questions about the president’s insistence that he doesn’t know the Ukrainian-born businessman. It comes amid a rapidly unspooling investigation that appears headed for a House vote to impeach the president.”
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