Arrest arrested. Federal prosecutors at Rudy Giulianis old haunts, the Southern District of new york, today indicted two of giulianis associates, level parnas and igor fruman. Theyre two foreignborn businessmen and donors. They were charged with carrying out a Campaign Finance scheme that involved funneling money to trumps super pac in an effort to influence u. S. ukraine relations. Moments ago, the president denied knowing either man, despite acknowledging that there may be a photo of them all together, which there is. I dont know those gentlemen. You were in pictures with them. That was possible i have a picture with them, because i have a picture with everybody. I have a picture with everybody here. But somebody said there may be a picture or something at a fundraiser or somewhere. So but i have pictures with everybody. I have i dont know if theres anybody i dont have pictures with. I dont know them. I dont know about them. I dont know what they do. But i dont know. Maybe they were clients of rudy. You would have to ask rudy. I just dont know. And in a sequence of events comes right out of a movie script, it seems, parnas and fruman were arrested hours after having lunch with giuliani at Dulles Airport near washington after purchasing oneway tickets out of the country. The night before, parnas, was asked to testify before congress. Fruman has also been asked to testify tomorrow. Both men have now been subpoenaed for documents. In announcing these charges this afternoon, which comes amid an impeachment inquiry in the president and Rudy Giulianis efforts to interfere in the 2020 election, the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york said this protecting the integrity of our elections and protecting our elections from unlawful foreign influence are Core Functions of our Campaign Finance laws. And as this office has made clear, we will not hesitate to investigate and prosecute those who engage in criminal conduct that draws into question the integrity of our political process. And i want to add that this investigation is continuing. Now, as you heard, this is an ongoing case. So, in addition to the impeachment inquiry, we now have a criminal inquiry. The big question now is, do these two investigations merge at any point . More importantly, can the attorney general, bill barr, do anything to stop that if he wanted to stop that . Well, in fact, we learned today that this case was open before barr became attorney general. He was first briefed on it shortly after his confirmation, according to the justice department. Theres a lot to unpack here as this impeachment inquiry, since its been opened seems like every day, but we have a lot to unpack here. Joining me for the latest on all of this, Kristen Welker is at the white house, a White House Correspondent for nbc news. Tom winter is in our Investigative Unit and joins me from new york. Kristen, i want to start with you. We just heard the president basically give a blanket denial on knowing these two gentlemen. And knowing a lot about that. But the president did make other news today about his attorney, trey gowdy, and hes bringing in a new attorney, although he just said that trey gowdy cant begin until january. Whats going on . Reporter thats right. Well, were still sorting through this and reporting it out, chuck. I do have a little bit more information. Jay sekulow says the reason for that is because theres a oneyear prohibition for congressmen interfacing with other members. His prohibition expires on january 3rd. The president said it a little bit differently. He said there are lobbying rules, which i think confused some people, but thats sort of the official statement thats being sent out by jay sekulow. The question, though, is how is he going to be helpful in the president s legal team if he cant start until january 3rd. Because, presumably, the impeachment inquiry thereby well underway possibly over, if you believe some of the democrats. Possibly over at that point in time. Exactly. My question is, is he going to be in an advisory role until january 23rd . It speaks to the fact that theyre bracing, chuck, potentially, for this to be drawn out, to extend beyond january 3rd. And as you and i have been reporting on throughout the week, the white house sending out that letter saying, effectively, theyre refusing to cooperate. So it is possible that this process gets dragged out. That they are anticipating that. And that that is why theyre okay with the timeline. But certainly, you would think it would complicate his ability to beef up his legal team, chuck. Now, today, before the president spoke about these two gentlemen that were arrested today, jay sekulow, the president s attorney put out a statement. I want to put it up, because it was an interesting way he worded it. He said, as the indictment states, neither the president nor the campaign were aware. Nothing in the indictment seems to mention the president or his campaign. I mean, as one of my producers said, its kind of like that scene in all the president s men where Robert Redford goes, theyre denying something i didnt ask them to deny. Reporter right. And i think it all highlights, chuck, the fact that this is very complicated and continues to be more complicated for the president and his associates. His outside attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and thats really at the crux of this, because we know the president was in close contact with Rudy Giuliani. We know that giuliani was investigating joe biden no ukraine and that these two associates were engaged in that investigation. It does speak to the level of defensiveness, that statement that you read here at the white house, and for the president s legal team. They are effectively dealing with incoming and as you point out, essentially denying something that wasnt stated in the indictment. Also in the last hour, rick perry became the ninth Administration Official to be subpoenaed either for a personal appearance or for documents, for rick perry, it was for documents, for now. Is he going to be governed, essentially, by the white house rules here, where theyre not cooperating, its all based on cipollones letter to congress . Well, that is the expectation. I mean, President Trump was just asked about this and indicated that perhaps there could be some wiggle room. But based on my conversations, that letter is dominating the strategy here at the white house. Dominating how they are approaching all of these requests. They see it, as one official said, as a sham. And so its hard to see they wouldnt put up some roadblocks. But again, President Trump, and well have to go back to the actual transcript, seemed to leave the door open, possibly for some type of cooperation. But remember, theyre expecting to hear if a key witness tomorrow, and its still not clear whats going to happen with that, chuck. Were not 100 clear if ambassador evonovich will testify yet . Were not 100 clear. We continue to ask and we havent gotten a firm answer yet. And i think to some extent, theyre dealing with these instances and these requests for documents and for testimony on a casebycase basis and they seem to be responding in realtime. And it raises a lot of questions about whether they have an allhandsondeck strategy. Lets move on to tom winter. Lets start with the basics. Lev and igor, who are these guys . Theyre giuliani associates, but how did they end up on the radar of the Southern District of new york . Right, chuck, if you look at this case, you have to go back to prior to all of this ukraine and the ambassador and the whistleblower and everything weve been hearing about for the past several weeks. So basically, where these guys come from and where this fits in is this was an ongoing federal criminal investigation into money that and youre looking at one of them right now, into money that they were bringing in, that according to federal prosecutors came from a Foreign National. They dont identify in the court paperwork who that Foreign National was. But they do say that the money came in and that it was involved in putting money into both state campaigns as well as federal campaigns, and that includes a super pac thats associated with the president. Youre looking at on the right, two of the people now, lev parnas and igor fruman. And basically, chuck, when you look at this case, youre seeing what we kind of typically see in these straw donation or foreign donation cases. Youre looking at somebody who was trying to move money in from abroad. Somebody who was people that were trying to get money into this country and have it influence elections, or people that were trying to donate more than youre allowed to give and putting in fake names. He even misspelled fruman, one time, initially misspelled his name in one of his filings to try to deceive the fec. So its kind of a standard case. What is not standard is one of the acts thats alleged here is that money went to a then sitting congressman, somebody that nbc news and people weve spoken with have identified as former congressman Pete Sessions, that Pete Sessions was given money and he was asked to lobby for the removal of the ukrainian ambassador, something thats the heart of the whistleblower allegation, something youve been covering for the last several weeks. And did he do that . Did he write a letter asking for a removal . Yeah. According to the documents and some of the things that weve seen, im actually scanning through the indictment right now, that is, according to federal prosecutors, something that did occur in this case. That he was involved with some of that. So, yeah, chuck, i think when we look at it, there was no doubt what Pete Sessions was up to here and what he was aware of what was going on. So Pete Sessions, who by the way, is the son of a former fbi director who served in the fbi. Yes, william sessions. Was appointed by reagan. Was there through the entire bush xli presidency until bill clinton replaced him with louis freeh. So this congressman is the son of a former fbi director, why isnt he being charged . Well, i think one of the things if you receive donations, there has to be a quid pro quo, chuck. Is the letter the evidence of the quid pro quo or not . You know, chuck, i would need to go back and double czeheck t indictment papers and double check with the case here, because its not you know, if you were running for office and i said, you know, chuck, im going to donate to your campaign, but ive got a real issue with sewers on the street that i live on here in manhattan, do you mind taking a look into that or talking to some people on the hill and see what we can do about it . Its kind of a situation where that wouldnt be a direct quid pro quo. If i said, chuck, im trying to build a skyscraper here in manhattan and im going to give you some money and buy you a boat for your personal benefit, and then you go to work on getting me a permit to build that skyscraper, it has to be a little bit closer to that than just necessarily a donation and somebody taking a look into something or advocating for a position. And as we all have learned, prosecuting elected officials on campaign charges is incredibly hard to make that happen. A lot easier to go after the illegal donor in this case, igor and lev. Crystal, tom, ill let you guys go, because you have a lot more reporting to do. Let me turn to a legal angle. Joining me is mimi rocah, an nbc news legal analyst. So all of a sudden, a part of this investigation related to ukraine is now in a is now being investigated by sdny. Right now, these are separate investigation investigatio investigations. Do you have a sense today of how sprawling the investigation is in sdny or is this a very narrow focus on lev and igor . In my experience, nothing in sdny is narrow . If the facts and the evidence take you elsewhere. One of the things that every prosecutor that i worked with there really follow the facts where they take you and it seems to me what were seeing in this indictment is, you know, i know we use this phrase a lot, but the tip of the iceberg. And that doesnt mean that i think that, you know, donald trump is going to be implicated tomorrow, i want to be clear. I think we have to be careful about, you know, expectations here. But i do think that Rudy Giuliani to be worried about now. I think its really looking at giulianis Financial Transactions with these two men. Part of it is just what investigation theyre doing still. And second of all, i think that theres real potential for cooperation here i was just going to ask that. Is that your i mean, this is that, you think, the real goal here by mr. Berman . I dont think cooperation is ever necessarily the only goal. You charge case that you think are worthy of charging. And the fact that they had a press conference today, i dont know how much people understand, thats not a common event. I was just going to say, they dont do it often, especially when they know the boss doesnt love this one, right . Theyre essentially saying, look, we think this is an important case. We think that the integrity of elections its not the first time that jeff berman and the new york fbi office have done this. They did it with michael cohen, you know, they did it with epstein. They are showing that even today under the thumb of bill barr, they are not afraid to do cases that are probably going to, you know, make trump, President Trump, angry. But also, i think they are making consistent statements about the integrity of the criminal justice process as they did with epstein and the integrity of the election process. So i think having a press conference to me does not mean, hey, and by the way, were going to cooperate and bring this really big case against Rudy Giuliani and other people. It means, we think this is an important case. We know this is an important issue right now. We know our elections are being interfered with by Foreign Governments and foreign officials as we speak. So were going to use the criminal justice process and law enforcement, where we can. But i do think that they are absolutely going to try to get these men to cooperate. And remember, these are leverage of the Southern District is much greater, frankly, than the leverage of congress. And i think thats something that becomes interesting here. Well, i was just going to say, these are two witnesses that the congressional inquisitors would like to speak to. I would assume the u. S. Attorney says, youll get your turn, but theyre ours for now. Does this actually probably slow down congress a bit . They wont get to these two gentlemen for a while . Yes. I think the short answer is yes. I think the prosecutors are going to want to go through and see what they can do with these potential cooperators. If they choose to cooperate themselves. And frankly, i think if you look at the big picture here, thats not a bad thing, because like i said, they have a lot more leverage here than congress does. And the chances of these men getting up and lying to congress and getting away with it is a lot stronger than them lying to the Southern District and getting away with it. So true, isnt it . Its a sad statement that you just uttered there, but it rings true, thats for sure. Final question is this. Theres a lot of current and former members of congress that are lunged to these two. Already, the list is building. Oh, they hosted a fundraiser for this person and apparently theres a connection here. How do you expect sdny to use the leverage of these two raising some funny money for some people. Is that how theyll get cooperation from these members of congress . Well, as you and tom were just discussing, bringing these type of charges against elected officials is much harder, but, you know, i think, look, we dont know the scope of this investigation right now. It will be very interesting to see, is this just a paperbased case . Is this based on other cooperating witnesses . Was there any kind of, you know, wire surveillance . I think that will, you know, and we shouldnt know that right now. But the answers to those questions, i think, will have a lot to do with where it goes next, because very quickly, mimi, do you get a sense that these two gentlemen didnt know that they were under investigation until yesterday . Well, they werent acting like they knew, but then they were trying to get out of here pretty quickly, and it doesnt seem like that was just because of their congressional depositions that were scheduled. Right. So, yes, i think that. Very interesting. Mimi rocah, good to talk with you. Thank you for comsharing your e. Much appreciated. Now lets turn to sahil kapoor, ruth marcus, continen continenty. Moving to a new location soon. You can say that im a fellow at ai anytime he is also a fellow at aei. I wear many hats, chuck. Yes, you do. Sahil, this rudy thing. On one hand, its it feels like, wow, every day, theres another piece to this, so it has that sort of cascading, but every day, we dont know which is which one of these new events is really big. Yeah, its not clear this has immediate substantiative impacts on the impeachment inquiry. I was speaking to a democratic source about this earlier, but it does add to the sense of political stench around Rudy Giuliani, who is already wrapped up in the ukraine matter, already part of the actions that democrats are impeaching over. So theyre going to want to get answers. The president of the United States, his client, is also getting asked about this. Why does he happen to be photographed with these people. Giuliani is not mentioned in this indictment. The president is not mentioned in this indictment. Some political implications have yet to be seen. It seems like giuliani is being looked at separately in terms if there was a connection, and if there was, these two men might want to talk about it to avoid prison time. Thats whats got to, you would assume, scares giuliani, is the fact that these two guys might start worrying about themselves first. Yes, but lets pull