Report: DeSantis and Parnas had scheduled meeting
Indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas had a meeting scheduled with Gov. Ron DeSantis in January after he was sworn in, Politico reported.
DeSantis spokesman Helen Ferre said the meeting was “political” and put on the calendar by former GOP consultant Susie Wiles, Politico reported, but WIles said she had nothing to do with it. Ferre also told Politico that although a meeting was scheduled, “no substantive meeting occurred.”
The report is the latest revelation about DeSantis’s connections with the Sovietborn businessman, who himself is now caught up in the Ukraine scandal enveloping Washington.
Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman were arrested in October on charges of funneling foreign cash into U.S. elections.
They donated $50,000 to DeSantis’s political committee, which DeSantis ordered to be given to the U.S. Treasury. When first asked about the men, Ferre had said DeSantis had never met “oneon-one” with the two.
But pictures and videos of Parnas and Fruman with DeSantis at his election night celebration party in Orlando soon surfaced, including one where he hugs Fruman. That was soon followed by photos of Parnas with DeSantis
at campaign rallies in Boca Raton and South Daytona the weekend before the election.
Ferre later said DeSantis at least never met with Parnas or Fruman while in office as governor. But additional photos showed Parnas and Fruman in a VIP area at DeSantis’s inauguration, and on Tuesday came the revelation that a meeting was at least scheduled while DeSantis was in office.
The Washington Post reported Parnas is telling associates he discussed Ukraine at a donor’s meeting with President Trump in 2018, in which they suggested the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine was “unfriendly to the president and his interests.”
“Trump immediately suggested that then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who had been in the Foreign Service for 32 years and served under Democratic and Republican presidents, should be fired,” the Post reported.
Parnas also reportedly went to the Ukraine to deliver the president’s demand of an inquiry into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, the New York Times reports, the very issue that led to Democrats launching an impeachment inquiry.