Here’s what you can expect from Rachel Maddow’s interview tonight with Lev Parnas

| 8:00 pm EST January 15, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Rachel Maddow announced on Twitter today that she’ll be interviewing Ukraine scandal figure Lev Parnas on her MSNBC show tonight. Parnas’ attorney Joseph Bondy then revealed at around 4pm eastern time that the interview had just finished being pre-taped. So what do we know about this interview, and what can we expect?

The most important piece of information we know so far may be that whereas Rachel Maddow generally does her entire show live, her Lev Parnas interview is pre-taped. This suggests that while Maddow is allowing Lev to have airtime, she wants to make sure that she can edit out any self-serving crap that Lev might say. It also gives her time to go back and fact-check everything Lev might say before airtime. In other words, she’s taking a journalistically responsible approach to an unpredictable interview. Of course Lev’s attorneys knew that they were picking a tough interviewer when they decided to put him on the air with Maddow, so one can hope that Lev is indeed doing this interview for the purpose of coming as clean as possible.

Yesterday the House released some of the evidence it just received from Lev, and it certainly appears legitimate. We expect Rachel will use the interview tonight to ask Lev about this new evidence, among other matters. The key here is that Lev is currently under criminal indictment for his role in the Ukraine scandal, and anything he says tonight can be used against him at trial.

That said, Lev appears intent on getting himself off the hook by incriminating the likes of Trump and Giuliani, so he may not hold back tonight when it comes to self-incriminating matters. Photo credit: Lev Parnas attorney Joseph Bondy, via Twitter