Lev Parnas just blew up Donald Trump
Lev Parnas wants everyone to know that he and his fellow Donald Trump henchmen were surveilling U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and discussed hiring local goons in Ukraine to surveil her or worse. Parnas gave this evidence to the House yesterday, and the House thinks the evidence is legitimate enough that it publicly released the phone messages in question today.
Let’s be clear here: Lev Parnas just willingly incriminated himself for crimes that appear to be even more severe than the crimes he’s already been arrested for. Lev is admitting that he tried to hire people to surveil, harass, or perhaps harm a U.S. Ambassador. Parnas is blowing himself up in the name of blowing Donald Trump up, in the apparent hope that he can score significant criminal leniency with the post-Trump DOJ if he helps take Trump down.
The House just confirmed that it will present this new evidence, along with additional not-yet-revealed evidence, when it makes its case against Donald Trump in his upcoming Senate impeachment trial. The House can use this evidence whether the Republican Senate allows witnesses to be called or not.
This evidence also places even more pressure on Republican Senators to cover their own backsides by voting to call witnesses. After all, one of Donald Trump’s own henchmen just admitted to plotting to hire foreign nationals to target a United States Ambassador. The infamous summary of Trump’s phone call with the President of Ukraine captured Trump saying that Ambassador Yovanovitch was going to “go through some things.” Is there an evidence trail proving that Trump knew his hired henchmen were doing this? We’ll soon find out.
