An indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani claimed an attorney visited him in jail and told him he needed to sacrifice himself to protect President Trump.
Lev Parnas, who has been charged with violating campaign finance laws, recounted the alleged conversation with former Trump lawyer John Dowd during an interview that aired Thursday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
“I started seeing in the process of the bail stuff, the way things were going on, they were more concentrating on — I didn’t feel that they were trying to get me out,” Parnas, 47, said. “John Dowd, instead of comforting me, trying to calm me down, telling me, ’It’s going to be OK, don’t worry,’ basically started talking to be like a drill sergeant, giving me orders, like, ‘Be a good boy.’”
Parnas clarified that he was not quoting Dowd verbatim, but that’s how he interpreted Dowd’s message. He said he fired Dowd during that heated conversation.
“Were they telling you to sacrifice yourself in order to protect the president?” Maddow asked.
“That’s what I felt,” Parnas said. “They tried to keep me quiet.”
Parnas, who helped in Giuliani’s campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, has made several bombshell allegations ahead of Trump’s impeachment trial, including his Wednesday claim that Trump “knew exactly what was going on.”
He has also provided documents and messages to the House Intelligence Committee with more details about the pressure campaign, which included a letter Giuliani sent to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that indicated Giuliani was acting at the direction of Trump.
Trump claimed Thursday he was unaware of the letter and doesn’t know Parnas.
