Two men who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information on Democrats in Ukraine were arrested on U.S. charges of funneling illegal foreign contributions to American political candidates in 2018.
The men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested Thursday and are scheduled to appear in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The indictment was filed in New York and also names an American-born businessman, David Correia, and Ukraine-born Andrey Kukushkin. Parnas, Fruman and Kukushkin are U.S. citizens. Parnas and Kukushkin were born in Ukraine and Fruman was born in Belarus.
The four are accused of making the donations to advance personal financial interests as well as the interests of an unidentified Ukrainian government official. Federal campaign records on Opensecrets.org show one of the straw donations, for $325,000, was made to The America First Action Committee, which has sought to advance issues championed by President Donald Trump.
According to the indictment, Parnas and Fruman coordinated with an unnamed U.S. congressman to get his help removing the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2018, at the behest of Ukrainian government officials. At the time, Marie Yovanovitch served in that role, before Trump recalled her in May.
The charges include conspiracy, false statements to election regulators and falsifying records. They four also accused of also taking steps to evade contribution limits on political donations by using straw donors.
John Dowd, a lawyer for Parnas and Fruman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
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