Parnas can’t be in Senate gallery
A Ukrainian-born associate of Rudy Giuliani who wants to testify at the Senate impeachment trial was given tickets to the proceeding by Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office but will not be able to go after a federal judge denied his request to remove his ankle monitor.
Lev Parnas, who is under indictment in the Southern District of New York for campaign-finance fraud in a case that crosses with Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine on behalf of President Donald Trump, is under house arrest in Florida and wears a monitor, though he’s been given prior travel permissions.
Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, said in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken that he got an email Tuesday from Amy Mannering, Schumer’s director of operations, “informing that my request for tickets to the trial had been granted.” The tickets were granted for a window of time at the trial today.
But the Senate’s spectator gallery rules have a long list of prohibited items — including all electronics. Parnas’s pre-trial services officer told Bondy that Parnas would have to get to New York to have his court-ordered GPS ankle monitoring bracelet removed before going to Washington for the trial in the time slot they were given: 12:30 to 2:45 p.m.
Bondy proposed that he and Parnas “return to New York at the end of the proceeding to have the GPS device replaced.”
Oetken said in a two-sentence ruling that Parnas could go to Washington, but “to the extent that (the request) seeks the removal of the GPS monitoring device, the request is denied.”
Bondy later wrote on Twitter: “Although we couldn’t arrange to have Lev Parnas watch the trial with us because his GPS ankle monitor is not allowed, Lev will join us in DC tomorrow to show support for a fair trial, with witnesses & evidence.”