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Giuliani asked 2 Ukrainian Oligarchs to Help Dig Up Dirt:

Dmitry Firtash & Ihor Kolomoisky.

Both have close ties to the Kremlin & face legal troubles.

Giuliani: “Where do you think you get information about crime?”

H/T ⁦@DrDenaGrayson⁩ nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
They were two Ukrainian oligarchs with American legal problems. One had been indicted on federal bribery charges. The other was embroiled in a vast banking scandal and was reported to be under investigation by the F.B.I.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
And they had one more thing in common: Both had been singled out by Rudolph W. Giuliani and pressed to assist in his wide-ranging hunt for information damaging to one of Trump’s leading political rivals, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
In the case of Firtash, an energy tycoon with deep ties to the Kremlin who is facing extradition to the US on bribery and racketeering charges, one of Mr. Giuliani’s associates has described offering the oligarch help with his DOJ problems —

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
if Mr. Firtash hired two lawyers (Toensing & diGenova) who were close to President Trump and were already working with Mr. Giuliani on his dirt-digging mission.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑Parnas’s lawyer confirmed that account and added that his client had met with Firtash at Giuliani’s direction and encouraged the oligarch to help in the hunt for compromising information “as part of any potential resolution to his extradition matter.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Mr. Firtash’s relationship to the Trump-allied lawyers — Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova — has led to intense speculation that he is, at least indirectly, helping to finance Mr. Giuliani’s campaign.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑Mr. Firtash said the offer was made in late June when he met with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both Soviet-born businessmen involved in Mr. Giuliani’s Ukraine pursuit.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
📌SIDE NOTE: Two Ukrainian gas industry experts say the gas-market reforms pushed by Biden and others in 2014 and 2015 hit Firtash in the wallet, and badly.

thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-olig…
📌One knowledgeable outside observer estimated that the 2014 and 2015 gas reforms and legislation cost Firtash hundreds of millions of dollars. 

🔑Why Firtash hates Biden.

thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-olig…
Firtash story - Hail Mary Pass to fight extradition.

In the interview, Mr. Firtash said he had no information about the Bidens and had not financed the search for it. “Without my will and desire,” he said, “I was sucked into this internal U.S. fight.” #SureJan
🙄🙄🙄

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
📌But to help his legal case, he said, he had paid his new lawyers $1.2 million to date, with a portion set aside as something of a referral fee for Mr. Parnas.$500,000

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Parnas Firtash

And in late August, Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova did as promised: They went to the Justice Department and pleaded Mr. Firtash’s case with the attorney general, William P. Barr.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
In an interview, Mr. Giuliani acknowledged that he had sought information helpful to Mr. Trump from a member of Mr. Firtash’s original legal team. Lanny Davis?

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Chuck Rosenberg: “And it is even worse if Mr. Giuliani, either directly or through emissaries acting on his behalf, intimated that pending criminal cases can be ‘fixed’ at the Justice Department.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
The president’s lawyer seems to be trading on the president’s supervisory authority over the Justice Department, and that is deeply disturbing.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑Mr. Bondy, the lawyer for Mr. Parnas said in a statement that all of his client’s actions had been directed by Mr. Giuliani.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
“Mr. Parnas reasonably believed Giuliani’s directions reflected the interests and wishes of the president, given Parnas having witnessed and in several instances overheard Mr. Giuliani speaking with the president,” the lawyer said.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Giuliani spoke with disgraced Ukrainian officials like Viktor Shokin, the former prosecutor general who suggested, falsely, that Mr. Biden had had him fired for looking into Burisma, as well as with Mr. Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
And he enlisted Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova, trusted colleagues since their days together in the Reagan Justice Department, to help interview and potentially represent anyone willing to come forward with dirt.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Barr & diGrnova have a long history:
‼️Update: #UkraineGate

10/19/19

Mr. Parnas acted as ‘translator’ and fixer, crisscrossing the Atlantic with stops at the Manhattan cigar bar that was Mr. Giuliani’s hangout, a strip club in Kyiv and even a Hanukkah reception at the White House.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
The campaign seemed to be paying off, with the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, poised to announce the investigations Mr. Giuliani sought, when the political situation changed.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
On April 21, Poroshenko was unseated by Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political novice, sending Giuliani scrambling to establish a conduit.

Two days later, Parnas & Fruman flew to Tel Aviv to meet with Kolomoisky, who was seen as Zelensky’s patron.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Mr. Kolomoisky, a banking and media tycoon who is one of Ukraine’s richest men, is also known for financing mercenary troops battling Russian-supported separatists in eastern Ukraine.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Earlier in April, The Daily Beast had reported, citing unnamed sources, that the F.B.I. was investigating him for possible money-laundering in connection with problems at a bank he had owned.

He is also entangled in a civil lawsuit in Delaware.

thedailybeast.com/billionaire-uk…
Mr. Giuliani’s assessment, according to Mr. Parnas’s lawyer, was that those legal problems made Mr. Kolomoisky vulnerable to pressure.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
But the meeting did not go according to plan. In an interview, Mr. Kolomoisky said the two men came “under the made-up pretext of dealing liquefied natural gas,”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
but as soon as it became clear that what they really wanted was a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Zelensky, he abruptly sent them on their way. The exchange, he said, went like this:

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
“I say, ‘Did you see a sign on the door that says, ‘Meetings with Zelensky arranged here’?
“They said, ‘No.’
“I said, ‘Well then, you’ve ended up in the wrong place.’”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
After the Kolomoisky meeting’s unsuccessful end, Giuliani tweeted about the DB article & gave an interview to a UKR journo.

Zelensky, he warned, “must cleanse himself from hangers-on from his past & from criminal oligarchs — Ihor Kolomoisky & others.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑Mr. Kolomoisky offered a warning of his own, predicting in the Ukrainian press that “a big scandal may break out, and not only in Ukraine, but in the United States.

🔑That is, it may turn out to be a clear conspiracy against Biden.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
The pair fared better with Mr. Firtash.

For several years, Mr. Firtash’s most visible lawyer had been Lanny Davis, a well-connected Democrat who also represented Mr. Trump’s fixer-turned-antagonist, Michael Cohen.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
In a television appearance in March, Mr. Giuliani had attacked Mr. Davis for taking money from the oligarch, citing federal prosecutors’ contention that he was tied to a top Russian mobster — a charge Mr. Firtash has denied.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Now, however, Giuliani wanted Mr. Firtash’s help.

🔑After being largely rebuffed by a member of the oligarch’s legal team in early June, he hit upon another approach, according to Parnas’s lawyer: persuading Firtash to hire more amenable counsel.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑Giuliani charged Mr. Parnas with persuading the oligarch to replace Mr. Davis with Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova.

🔑The men secured the June meeting with Firtash in Vienna after a mutual acquaintance, whom Firtash declined to name, vouched for them.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Firtash said it had been clear to him that the two emissaries were working for Mr. Giuliani.

🔑Firtash, a major player in the URN gas market, said Parnas and Fruman initially pitched him on a deal to sell US LNG to Ukraine, via a terminal in Poland.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
💰Firtash Gas Distribution

Rick Perry & the Sale & Transportation of US LNG (liquid natural gas) to Ukraine

Firtash II

💰Raiffeisen Banking Group

Firtash & Mogilevitch & Trump Tower Toronto

While the deal didn’t make sense financially, Firtash said, he entertained it for a time, even paying for Parnas & Fruman’s travel expenses, because they had something else to offer. Oh?

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
“They said, ‘We may help you, we are offering to you good lawyers in D.C. who might represent you and deliver this message to the U.S. D.O.J.,” Mr. Firtash recalled, referring to the Justice Department.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
In hopes of blocking that order, Firtash & his Vienna lawyers had filed records showing that a key piece of evidence — a doc known as “Ex A” that was said to lay out the bribery scheme — had been prepared not by Firtash’s firm, but by McKinsey & Company.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
But Mr. Firtash’s legal team had been unable to persuade federal prosecutors to withdraw it. McKinsey has denied recommending “bribery or other illegal acts.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova, the Giuliani emissaries told him, “are in a position to insist to correct the record and call back Exhibit A as evidence,” Mr. Firtash recalled.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Firtash Boeing Titanium

Dmytro Firtash
6/21/19 ORDER

drive.google.com/file/d/1yWzybT…
‼️Firtash & Mogilevich

He hired the lawyers, he said, on a four-month contract for a singular task — to arrange a meeting with the attorney general and persuade him to withdraw Exhibit A. He said their contract was for $300,000 a month, including Mr. Parnas’s referral fee.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
A person with direct knowledge of the arrangement said Mr. Parnas’s total share was $200,000; Ms. Toensing declined to discuss the payment but has said previously that it was for case-related translation.🙄

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
There was one more piece to Mr. Parnas’s play. “Per Giuliani’s instructions,”

Mr. Parnas’s lawyer said, his client “informed Mr. Firtash that Toensing and diGenova were interested in collecting information on the Bidens.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑It was Biden the former vice president who had pushed the Ukrainian government to eliminate middleman gas brokers like Mr. Firtash and diversify the country’s supply away from Russia.

🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
At any rate, Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova soon delivered for Mr. Firtash, arranging the meeting with Attorney General Barr. But by the time they met, in mid-August, the ground had shifted:

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑The whistle-blower’s complaint laying out Mr. Trump’s phone call with Mr. Zelensky, and Mr. Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine, had been forwarded to the Justice Department and described in detail to Mr. Barr.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
What’s more, concerns about intervening in the Firtash case had been raised by some inside the Justice Department, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
📌Mr. Firtash continues, however, to have faith in Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova’s ability to work the Justice Department angle.

📌Their contract was just extended at least through year’s end.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔑After Ms. Toensing and Mr. diGenova came on board, confidential documents from Mr. Firtash’s case file began to find their way into articles by John Solomon, a conservative reporter for The Hill.
nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
📌Giuliani has acknowledged using John Solomon & The Hill to advance his claims about the Bidens.

📌Mr. Solomon is also a client of Ms. Toensing.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
One article, citing internal memos circulated among Mr. Firtash’s lawyers, disclosed that Mueller’s office had offered a deal to Mr. Firtash if he could help with their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 🤔

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Mr. Giuliani took the story a step further. In an appearance on Fox News, he alleged that the offer to Mr. Firtash amounted to an attempt to suborn perjury, but said the oligarch had refused to “lie to get out of the case” against him. #SureJan

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Lev Parnas Said He Assisted Barr’s ‘Investigation’ Of Russia Probe

nationalmemo.com/lev-parnas-sai…
Then, after the meeting with Barr, Solomon posted a sworn affidavit from Shokin, the disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor, repeating his contention that Mr. Biden had pressed for his firing to short-circuit his investigations.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Mr. Giuliani was soon waving the affidavit around on television, without explaining that it had been taken by a member of Mr. Firtash’s legal team to support his case.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
Mr. Firtash said he had not authorized the document’s release and hoped his lawyers had not either. 🙄

He said the affidavit had been filed confidentially with the Austrian court because it also included the former prosecutor’s statement

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
The doc alleged Mr. Biden had been instrumental in blocking Mr. Firtash’s return to political life in Ukraine — an assertion that Mr. Firtash believes speaks to the political nature of the case against him.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
In the statement notarized on Sept. 4 of this year, disgraced prosecutor Shokin says that as VP, Biden pressured Ukrainian politicians to prevent Firtash from returning to Kyiv in 2015 after a lower Austrian court rejected his extradition request.

foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giu…
🔑It is not clear if there is any basis for the claim, but a fmr sr adm official said that the US did not want to see Firtash return to UKR, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, but that the policy was NOT related to Biden or his family.

foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giu…
🔑It wasn’t just Washington that didn’t want to see Firtash return to Ukraine; the Ukrainians didn’t either.

foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giu…
In late 2015, with Kyiv awash with rumors that he might return, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov dispatched a group of far-right fighters to the Kyiv airport to detain him if he arrived, while Ukrainian airspace was closed to all charter flights. 

foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giu…
Bottom line:

🔑Firtash Seethed About ‘Overlord’ Biden for Years

🔑Indicted oligarch Dmytro Firtash spent more than $1 million hiring key figures in Republican efforts to investigate the Biden family. 

thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-olig…
@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you. #Firtash #UkraineGate
‼️More details here:

Rudy Giuliani Sought Role in Ukraine Bank Case While He Dug for Dirt

The dispute between Privatbank and the previous owner, Igor Kolomoisky, is politically charged.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Karol Cummins
@karolcummins
💣So Busted💣

Trump Knew of WBC Which Likely Prompted Him To Release The Aid to Ukraine

Which means he would have known about it before he told Sondland there was 'no quid pro quo.'

Trump throws Rudy under the bus:

Trump Denies Sending Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine for Biden Probe
💣So Busted💣

Cipollone & Eisenberg —knew about the whistle-blower complaint in August & briefed Trump in late August about it.

Trump administration officially put hold on Ukraine aid same day as Trump call 7/25;

Per Sandy Transcript Trump ordered hold 7/12/19 per email.
💣So Busted3💣

ICIG Atkinson, concluded that the administration needed to send it to Congress.

But Cipollone & Eisenberg disagreed.

They decided that the adm could withhold from Congress the whistle-blower’s accusations because they were protected by executive privilege.
Read 78 tweets
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Karol Cummins
@karolcummins
‼️Heads Up‼️

Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 Pollster Doug Schoen’s former client was Ukrainian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk.

Pinchuk’s ties to Trump were scrutinized in the Mueller probe.

Get it? thedailybeast.com/michael-bloomb…
The Ukrainian billionaire (Victor Pinchuk) in the cross-hairs of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has a long history of complicated business ties, some of which link to fugitive Kazakh investors in a Trump-branded property.

mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/art…
The legal battles have reached U.S. shores, where federal courts in New York and Los Angeles are hearing cases against Ablayzov’s daughter Madina and her husband Ilyas Khrapunov. allegations.

Read more here: mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/art…
Read 12 tweets
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Karol Cummins
@karolcummins
💣MustTestify💣

Trump Ordered Review of U.S. Sanctions on Turkey’s Halkbank

“Treasury didn't deny Trump asked Mnuchin to intervene in Halkbank case.” #TurkeyGate

Giuliani asked 2 Ukrainian Oligarchs to Help Dig Up Dirt: Dmitry Firtash & Ihor Kolomoisky.

McGahn must testify.
💣MustTestify2💣

Firtash & Kolomoisky have close ties to the Kremlin & face legal troubles.

Giuliani: “Where do you think you get info about crime?”

Rudy Giuliani Sought Role in Ukraine Bank Case While He Dug for Dirt

Subpoenas sent Parnas’s biz that paid Rudy Giuliani.
💣MustTestify3💣

EG:”Trump and Mnuchin are trying to keep RU and Iranian Mob money laundering going while pretending to seek war against Iran.

Ukraine’s last adm nationalized Privatbank bank in 2016 & accused Kolomoisky & his co-founder of making away with billions of dollars.
Read 71 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
WaterBluSky
@MsMariaT
"One [Firtash] had been indicted on federal bribery charges. The other [Kolomoisky] was embroiled in a vast banking scandal and was reported to be under investigation by the F.B.I."
"...they had one more thing in common: Both had been singled out by Rudolph W. Giuliani and pressed to assist in his wide-ranging hunt for information damaging to one of President Trump’s leading political rivals, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr."
"That effort culminated in the 7/25/19 ph call between the American and Ukrainian presidents that has taken Trump to the brink of impeachment and inexorably brought Mr. Giuliani’s Ukrainian shadow campaign into the light."

Recall, Firtash was supposed to be extradited in July.
Read 99 tweets
Profile picture
Dr. Dena Grayson
@DrDenaGrayson
🔥#Ukrainegate henchman—Lev Parnas—allegedly met with Ukrainian-#Russian🇷🇺mobligarch Dmitry Firtash at Rudy’s direction and encouraged Firtash to help dig up dirt “as part of any potential resolution to his extradition matter” on #bribery & other charges.

nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/…
🔥In June, Parnas advised Firtash to hire 2 lawyers already helping Rudy dig up dirt—Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing—who would help BLOCK Firtash’s extradition to the US.

Firtash hired and paid them $1.2 million. In August, they met with Bill Barr to plead Firtash’s case.🛎
Yet another corrupt #QuidProQuo by Team Trump, but this time, with a reputed Ukrainian-#Russian🇷🇺mobligarch already under federal #indictment for #bribery and #RICO.

And the complicit @GOP will excuse yet more #corruption by @realDonaldTrump at the cost of our democracy.🤬
Read 3 tweets
Profile picture
Radley Balko
@radleybalko
Let's put the bribery and extortion stuff aside for a moment, and focus on two things that are undisputed.

First, Trump dispatched his private attorney to conduct a shadow foreign policy. This included working with a corrupt ex-prosecutor, ...

(1/xx)

texastribune.org/2019/11/21/wil…
... threatening a U.S. ambassador, and trying to squeeze a newly-elected president -- who ran on an anti-corruption platform -- into doing something that even Hurd agrees is unseemly.

Second, in a private phone call, Trump asked said newly-elected president --
-- over whom he has considerable leverage -- to help Trump bring down a domestic political rival. Trump's true motivation here is revealed by witness accounts stating he was far more interested in the *announcement* of an investigation than an actual investigation, as well as...
Read 14 tweets
Profile picture
Polly Sigh
@dcpoll
Trump’s effort to smear Biden has overlapped with the interests of Dmytro Firtash, the Russian mob-connected oligarch who bankrolled Manafort's pro-Putin dirty work in Ukraine––which included a black ops smear campaign of Yanukovych's opponent.
#Maddow
Giuliani recently met with DOJ’s criminal division chief to discuss a foreign bribery case for a “very, very sensitive” client, who, as it turns out, is Firtash [via @lrozen].

Trump's personal lawyer is representing a top-tier comrade of the Russian mob.
Read 22 tweets
Profile picture
Paula Chertok🗽
@PaulaChertok
🔥Yet another quid pro quo & foreign interference >> #Firtash associates were working to dig up dirt on Biden in an effort to get Rudy #Giuliani’s help in the oligarch’s legal case fighting extradition to US on bribery charges. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… #UkraineGate #Impeachment
Around the time #Firtash hired Joe diGenova & Victoria Toensing—vocal Trump supporters, FoxNews regulars & #Giuliani cohorts—Firtash’s associates began to use his broad network of Ukraine contacts to get damaging information on Biden. #UkraineGate #ImpeachmentInquiry
If Firtash’s legal maneuvering—hiring pro-Trump FoxNews lawyers & working with Giuliani’s guys to help Trump—actually gets him off federal racketeering charges, we’ll know criminal mobsters really do own our Justice Dept. Barr’s stain on DOJ may be even greater than Trump’s on WH
Read 4 tweets

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