President Trump's personal White House lawyer Jay Sekulow knew about Rudy Giuliani's efforts to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, but "didn't agree with what Rudy was doing," Lev Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
In an interview that aired Thursday night, Parnas, an associate of Giuliani, said Sekulow was "in the loop" but "didn't want to be involved in the Ukraine stuff." He said he heard Sekulow and Giuliani talk about the matter, and Sekulow "didn't agree with what Rudy was doing, but he knew what he was doing."
Parnas and his business partner Igor Fruman were arrested in October and charged with campaign finance violations. John Dowd, Trump's former attorney, was briefly Parnas' lawyer, and Parnas told Maddow that during a visit to the jail, Dowd told him to "be a good boy." Maddow asked if Dowd was "telling you to sacrifice yourself to protect Trump," and Parnas responded, "Yes ... they tried to keep me quiet." Parnas said soon after, he fired Dowd.
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New evidence Parnas submitted to House impeachment investigators was released this week, including an email from Sekulow dated Oct. 2, 2019. It states, "The president consents to allowing your representation of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman [sic]." Trump has claimed multiple times that he does not know Parnas; Parnas has promised to release photos of the two together every time he makes a denial.
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