Lev Parnas is continuing to keep himself in the news. Recently, he “broke his silence” by going on Rachel Maddow’s conspiracy themed show to spread a bunch of accusations. Those accusations conveniently allowed Parnas to claim he is a victim in the Trump-Ukraine drama.
Facts tell a much different story, showing Parnas had prior dealings with an Ukrainian oligarch and that his desires to oust former Amb. Yovanovitch predate Rudy Giuliani’s machinations. While the media wants to paint the President as an evil genius, it more and more looks like Parnas was trying to use Giuliani for his own gain, feeding bad information to pull the strings he wanted pulled.
Regardless, because Parnas is claiming to have dirt on Trump, he’s suddenly a media superstar, being given instant credibility. There’s a big issue though. Namely that he’s currently under indictment and is facing prison for financial crimes. That means he’s desperate to pull a Michael Cohen and “cooperate.”
Unfortunately for Parnas, prosecutors aren’t showing much interest in talking to him about any kind of deal.
You’ll be shocked to learn that the above reporter is misrepresenting the situation. In reality, the SDNY has already talked to Parnas. The fact that they are now icing him out is evidence that they believe he 1) has nothing to offer 2) doesn’t deserves any kind of deal and 3) isn’t credible even if he had something to offer.
The game here with Parnas and the media response are to paint this as some kind of nefarious plot by Bill Barr to stop a cooperation deal. The truth is that the SDNY is fiercely independent. It’s also an office full of careerist, which statiscallly means most are Democrats. If there was any game playing going on here, they’d be talking, not standing idly by. That says that the reason Parnas isn’t being offered anything is legitimate and not some political move by the DOJ.
Futher, no one should be taking anything Parnas and his lawyer say at face value. This guy is looking for a way out and thinks his last chance is to play prosecutors with wild promises of bringing down the President. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen though, so he’ll be stuck crying to MSNBC and CNN I guess.