Attorney for indicted Giuliani associate says evidence in case could be subject to executive privilege

Lev Parnas and his wife, Svetlana Parnas.

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 23 October 2019

A lawyer for Lev Parnas, one of two associates of Rudy Giuliani accused of illegally funneling money into U.S. elections, told a federal judge on Wednesday some of the evidence collected in his client's case could be subject to executive privilege.

Parnas and Igor Fruman have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said that over the course of executing more than a dozen search warrants, investigators gathered evidence from electronic devices, social media accounts, and email. Parnas' attorney, Edward MacMahon Jr., said that the White House could invoke executive privilege, since Giuliani is President Trump's personal lawyer and also at one point represented Parnas.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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