Scheme in ukraine, for which the president has nobody you impeached. To pressure ukraine announcing investigation of joe biden, the concurrent use of military aid, a and visits with u. S. Government officials, and other things the Ukrainian Government desperately wanted, basicallys count kudgels. Tonight the articles of impeachment have been walked over, actually basically right as that was happening, the impeachment committees in the house, simultaneously to this moment, released some additional phone records from mr. Parnas, which have revealed yet further information about who was involved in this scheme and how it worked. Well, today in new york city i met with lev parnas, and with his lawyer joseph bondi. Tonight were going to brent this exclusive interview. Mr. Parnas has never spoken in a televised interview. Hes not spoken to reporters at all since his name surfaced in conjunction with a scandal and since he was arrested on october 9th, with a oneway ticket at dulles airport. He was charged with federal felony counts for funneling illegal contributions to republican candidates and campaigns. Mr. Parnas is under indictment, awaiting trial. He has pled not guilty. He agreed to speak with me today on the condition that his lawyer, joseph bondi, would be seated alongside him throughout the interview. Thats a condition i agreed to. To be honest, because i agreed to that condition, i fully expected that it would be mr. Bondi, the lawyer, who did most of the talking, but it did not work out that way. Mr. Parnas, as you see here, he is absolutely here to here, he is absolutely here t speak for himself, and is more than capable of doing so. He and his attorney have made clear in recent days and weeks that lev parnas does want to testify to the impeachment investigation. That said, i cant stress enough that he right now is out on bond awaiting trial in federal court on serious felony charges. So the decision for him to do this interview with me today is very unusual. People in that circumstance, in terms of federal felony charges, dont typically do media interviews, but they agreed to sit down with me today, and we did it. Lets get right to it. I will tell you in advance, to set the stage, in this interview, you will hear lev parnas make some bombshell assertions about the involvement and knowledge of President Trump and Vice President mike pence in the ukraine scandal. He will make a specific allegation about the president s unique role in holding up the u. S. Aid to ukraine as an additional lever of pressure against the Ukrainian Government. You will also hear fairly explicit allegations by mr. Parnas about attorney general william barr. He also makes some allegations about several other members of the cabinet. Well talk about some of those tonight, and were saving some to talk about tomorrow so we can do some additional reporting around them. On top of all of that, as mr. Parnas makes penalat the top of interview, he nose that in addition to all of the it evidence, he still has yet more to share. All right. Here with go. Mr. Parnas, mr. Bondi, thank you both for agrees to do this. I know this is a leap of trust to speak pushily. Thanks to both of you for agrees to do it. Thanks for having us here. Thank you. Let me ask you first lev, did you know these materials would be released publicly last night . Its landed with quite a splash. Its very provocative material. Did you know it would be made public . No, i didnt. Yes, it was an incredible day. It was a godsend with joes help to get that in time. We didnt think we would make it. We stayed up to look 2 00 in the morning to send information. What was the deadline. The deadline was trying to say it tole intel cleanse committee. With the article goes the record s we had reason to believe certain pieces would be put into the public record. We just werent sure when that would be, and we had no idea what it would be. In terms of what they have reat leasted publicly some was held back, but in terms of what we have seen publicly, does it all look authentic . Does any of it seem doctored . In terms of what you handed over. Yes. Absolutely. Are you still putting together more information to give to congress, or do you feel like the deadline has passed . Well continue making productions, as we get materials from Southern District and anything we can possibly find on our own, through the cloud or whatever it may be, well continue to produce things until were told not to. Mr. Parnas, why do you want to testified . I want to get the truth out. I think its important for the country. I think its important for me. I think its important for the world to know exactly what transpired, because theres a lot of things that are being said that are not accurate. I just want to make sure that they are accurate. Things happened that need to get out, and i think the world needs to know. What do you think is the main inaccuracy or main lie thats being told that you feel like you can correct. That the president did know what was going on. President trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. I wouldnt do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. I have no intent, no reason to speak to any of these officials. They have no reason to speak to me. Why would president s zelensky inner circle or minister or president poroshenko meet with me. Who am i . They were told to meet with me. Thats the secret they were trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work. In terms of the president and what he has said about you, he said about you and from igor frumen, i dont know those gentlemen, no know what they do. Youre saying that was not a true statement . He lied. When you say friends, me and him didnt eat hot dogs together. I interacted with him as a lot of events. We had oneonone conversations at roundtables. Basically i was forour five days out of the week i was in Constant Contact with him. I was with rudy when he would speak to the president , plenty of times. I mean, so its just ludicroew how did you know rudy was on the phone with the president . Was it on speakerphone . It would be sever times on speakerphone. He would start the conversation, take it off, and then go somewhere else to talk to him. A lot of times it was on the golf course when we were golfing together. I especially remember during the mueller time that rudy said something that was taking out of context and he was creaming at him so loud. Thats when i watched the testimony, i could understand that you cant hear President Trump talking to like i heard him several times when he was with rudy. Because he speaks loudly on the phone . Very loudly. When you say the president knew about your movements and what you were doing, are you saying specifically, and i want to drill down on that, that the president was aware you and mr. Giuliani were working on this effort in ukraine to basically hurt joe bidens political career . He knew that . It was all about joe biden, hunter biden, and rudy had a personal thing with the manafort stuff, the black ledger. That was another thing they were looking into, but it was never about corruption. It was it strictly about burris ma, which included hunter biden and joe biden. Strictly about joe biden, hunter biden. In terms of the involvement, mr. Parnas went out to assert that not only was President Trump aware of what he and mr. Giuliani were doing on his behalf in ukraine, try to say gin up this investigation to hurt joe biden, mr. Parnas says that the fact that he was working for President Trump is a point that was made explicitly over and over again in a very formal way, in his dealings in his meetings in ukraine. Your attorney told the federal court in new york that you were both Rudy Giulianis clients and you were working for mr. Giuliani in his capacity as personal attorney to the president. Correct. Which, by the way the transtiff property, makes it seem like ump working for the president as part of this legal defense. Yes, absolutely. Did anybody in the u. S. Government or Rudy Giuliani actually conveyed to ukraine officials that you were there as a representative . Absolutely. To each official, i put rudy on the phone with the minute terse several times. Evan, Yuri Lutsenko test time, the teerng. First i said im here on behalf of Rudy Giuliani and the president of the United States. I would like for you to put on you speakerphone to confirm him. Rudy confirmed basically that we were there on behalf of the president of the United States. That you were there to speak on behalf of President Trump. Yes, those exact records. When he weighing taking meetings to advance this scheme, taking meetings with various government officials in ukraine, he said it was a regular occurrence, the way the meetings started. He would put Rudy Giuliani on phone, on the speakerphone in the room, and he would say explicitly, mr. Giuliani would say explicitly that as the president s personal attorney that they would affirm that lev parnas was at that meeting to speak on behalf of the president of the United States, donald trump. In may of last year, may of 2019, mr. Giuliani started speaking with reporters about his plans to travel him very much to ukraine to try to enlist the Ukrainian Governments assistance to help to try to get them to announce investigations into Vice President biden, because that would be very helpful to his client. The resulting firestorm of criticism, mr. Giulianis trip was called off in may. When he called off the trip, mr. Giuliani made public statements criticizing the new government of ukraine, saying the new president was surrounded by enemies of the United States. For ukraine, that was a really big deal. All right . Ukraine is at war with russia, a country very dependent on both of reality and perception of them having strong support from the United States government. So when mr. Giuliani, as the president s personal attorney, made public claisms that the new ukrainian president was surrounded by enemies of the United States of america, and thats why he wasnt going, at that point the Ukrainian Government kind of freaked out. That kind 6 kind of administration for their new president in ukraine, thats a potential death sentence for their country. At the time that happened, lev parnas was in ukraine, he with us in kiev at the time, and he told me today he was tasked by Rudy Giuliani in that moment to crank up the pressure of ukraine, to might be more insists arent, more often, even more onerous, this threat and demand that ukraine must announce investigations into joe biden or else. Did you meet with the Sergei Shaffer . I did. Hes a senior aide to president cenk uygur. Its been reported that you conveyed to mr. Shaffer the exact quid pro quo, you wanted zelensky to announce investigations into biden or sells military aid would not be released. Is that accurate . It was more than that. Basically the message i gave Sergei Shaffer, i was told to give it to him in a harsh way. Who told you that . Mayor Rudy Giuliani told me after, you know meeting with the president at the white house, the message was it wasnt just military aid, it was all aid. Basically their relationships would be sour, that we would stop giving them any kind of aid unless . Unless there were several demands at that point. A, the most important was the announcement of the biden investigation. Did you also convey to him that the u. S. Government would stop showing support for mr. Zelensky, that they wouldnt attend the inauguration . That was the biggest thing, actually, the main because at that time you have to understand the way ukraine is. For president zelensky winning on that platform, become a young president , not having really any experience and being at wart with russia at the time, the number one thing was not even aid, and i know it sounds crazy, but more support from the president , by having a white house visit, by having a big inauguration, by having the dignitaries there. That was the key. At that time they were already aware because of their conversations i had guess with the embassy that Vice President pence was supposed to come to the inauguration. They were planning it out, working on days that would be good for him. At our meeting, i was very, very stern. It was a heated conversation from our part to him, basically telling him what needs to be done, i mean, basically me. In the conversation, i told him that if he doesnt the announcement was the key at that time because of the inauguration, that pence would not show up. Nobody would show up to the inauguration. Unless he announced an investigation into joe biden, no u. S. Official, particularly Vice President pence would not come. Particularly Vice President. The david it was a sunday the 12th. I believe it was the following day that in fact Vice President pences visit to the inauguration was canceled. It was after my phone call. The conversation i laid out was basically what i was told to do by giuliani and the president. Afterwards i relayed back that he would get back to me later that night and were supposed to meet. 8 00, 9 00 that night i said any word . Any situation . And you can see when a person disconnects you. He blocked you . He blocked me. I understood that was a no. I called back and said nogo, and i remember rudy going, okay, theyll see. Basically the next day pence, to my awareness trump called up and said make sure pence doesnt go there. You believe mr. Pences trip to the inauguration was canceled because they didnt agree i know. It was 100 . The chain of events, that was key to where we are today. After that, take a look at what transpires. Next within the next couple days, they realize that now they get word. Obviously when pence cans also, they get word. So now they realized what i was was coming was truss. Now they realize that if they didnt investigation that Vice President pence wouldnt come to the inauguration, they realize no fact pence canceled his inauguration, they knew i was legit. Thats essential what hes saying. I love his line that Rudy Giuliani says, okay, theyll see. In fact, the Vice President pence does cancel his trip to the inauguration within 24 hours. But for mr. Parnas, that was a key moment for him in terms of being able to continue to work on this effort in ukraine with credibility, because mike pence cancelling his trip to the inauguration was a validating moment. It made clear to the government of ukraine at the highest level, a senior aide to the new president , this made it clear that lev parnas was legitimately representing the president of the United States and the white house in this shakedown. So Vice President mike pence has his planned trip to the inauguration canceled after you were unable to get the Ukrainian Government to announce investigations into Vice President biden. Do you know if Vice President pence was aware that was the quid pro quo, and in fact why his trip was going to be pull off. Im going to use a quote by sondland everybody knew. Everybody knew that was contingent on the investigations being announced . I know he we arent to poland also to discuss this on trumps behave. He couldnt have not known. After the inauguration, september 1st, Vice President pence goes to poland and takes a meeting with president zelensky of ukraine. One of the unusual revelations weve had since the impeachment investigations was a Defense Department email that was made public through a freedom of information act lawyer, that Defense Department from the chief of stat to he tell someone else dont im paraphrasing this ukraine aid problem is going to all by sorted as soon as Vice President pence meeks president zelensky in poland. Do you understand why somebody in the secretary of Defenses Office might have believed that . It makes sense to me. What was transpiring is every time, like i said to you, at every meeting either giuliani or i would have, or somebody from the trumps government would have with the ukrainians, they would also agree that they were going to make some sort of that they were on board, theyll make an announcement, and then they would walk it back. After certain instances President Trump was supposed to meet zelensky in poland himself. But they he used the execution of the hurricane. It wasnt because of the hurricane. It was because he was angry that zelensky still didnt make any teem or effort to make any announcement. How do you know that wasnt an excuse. I spoke to rudy. We spoke about this every day. Everything that was going on was between me, victoria, rudy, the team. So President Trump is supposed to go, he decides not to go. He sends Vice President instead. Hes to go there and get it straightened out that zelensky was supposed to make another announcement. That didnt happen. Thats when bolton, secretary bolton, went over there. I think he has a lot to say. I think hes a key witness to his conversation with zelensky, and when he came back and why he left, got fired, however you want to look at that. When Vice President pen went over there september 1st, in