Giuliani associate can hand over cell phone contents to House Democrats, judge rules
Lev Parnas was charged in a campaign finance case last year.
A federal judge ruled Friday that Lev Parnas, an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, can provide additional records sought by the House impeachment investigators, including the contents of his cell phone.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee requested records from Parnas and his business associate, Igor Fruman, in October 2019. The two men are under indictment on allegations of campaign finance violations, and both reportedly played a key roles in assisting Giuliani in his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine. Both have pleaded not guilty.
On Monday, a lawyer for Parnas, Joseph Bondy, wrote a letter to U.S. Judge J. Paul Oetken in New York asking the court’s permission to share records obtained by the government with House investigators pursuant to the subpoena.
The records include “documents seized from Mr. Parnas’s home … and the complete extraction of Parnas’s iPhone 11, seized from Mr. Parnas upon his arrest on October 9, 2019,” Bondy wrote.
“At present, we do not know whether we intend to produce the entirety of the materials, or a subset filtered for either privilege or relevancy,” Bondy continued. “If a subset, we will inform the Court and Government as to what we have actually have produced.”
On Friday, Judge Oetken wrote that “Parnas may produce the materials referenced herein to the United States House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.”
As ABC News has previously reported, the House Intelligence Committee is already in possession of audio and video recordings and photographs provided by Parnas, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The material submitted to the committee includes audio, video and photos that include Giuliani and Trump.
Beyond what Bondy wrote in his letter to Judge Oetken earlier this week, the content in the additional records remain unknown. But a letter sent to Parnas by the committee as part of its subpoena asked him to produce “all documents and communications” relating to Giuliani and President Trump, among many others.
Parnas and Fruman were arrested last year at the Dulles International Airport just outside of Washington, with one-way international tickets, and charged in a criminal campaign finance case in the Southern District of New York. Accused of allegedly circumventing campaign finance laws against straw donations and foreign contributions, Parnas and Fruman pleaded not guilty.
According to the indictment, Parnas sought then-Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s ouster earlier this year along with his efforts to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the president’s political rival, matters that have repeatedly emerged in the House impeachment inquiry.
Giuliani’s relationship with Parnas and Fruman is the subject of a criminal investigation in the Southern District of New York, according to sources.