Rudy Giuliani’s Indicted Ukraine Contact Gave Thousands To Kevin McCarthy, Says Report
As impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump continue in the wake of the Ukraine scandal, his supporters, such as Rudy Giuliani and Kevin McCarthy, continue to face scrutiny. In a recent development, New York Daily News reporter Michael McAuliff uncovered that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy received a donation of $2,700 in June 2018 from Lev Parnas, one of Giuliani’s Ukraine contacts indicted this week on campaign finance charges, Raw Story reports.
Per Raw Story, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which was responsible for the arrest of Parnas and Giuliani’s other Ukraine contact, Igor Fruman, claims that the pair were “working with Giuliani and Ukrainian government officials to alter U.S. policy.” According to CLC director Brendan Fischer, Parnas and Fruman illegally laundered donation money through a shell corporation. Afterward, the donations were reportedly made to politicians in order to “advance their own personal financial interests” as well as the “political interests of Ukrainian government officials.”
Following Trump’s controversial phone call with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he reportedly asked him to dig up dirt on potential Democratic rival Joe Biden, many in the GOP defended him; McCarthy was one such person. During an interview on 60 Minutes, McCarthy was questioned about whether Trump’s phone call was appropriate by host Scott Pelley, and he dodged the question. McCarthy also appeared to believe that Pelley altered a verbatim quote from the transcript.
McCarthy ultimately threw his support behind Trump, suggesting the president did nothing wrong on the call, and the Democrat-led House should not move forward with impeachment. Independent Justin Amash was notably critical of McCarthy’s performance, calling the interview an example of his “unique brand of incompetence and dishonesty.”
Kevin McCarthy again displays his unique brand of incompetence and dishonesty. pic.twitter.com/KAijpPMk6R
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) September 30, 2019
Aside from McCarthy, Giuliani has been Trump’s primary attack dog in the wake of the Ukraine scandal. He has been pushing the theory that Biden and his son, Hunter, were involved in corruption in Ukraine. Despite a purported lack of evidence for the theory, Giuliani and Trump’s camp continue to push it to the media.
Regardless, Hunter, who held a position at the Ukraine natural gas company Burisma with no experience in the industry, has raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. As Ryan Grim wrote for The Intercept, even if Trump and Giuliani’s corruption theory isn’t true, Biden’s family has clearly profited from his political career.
“Indeed, Biden has been taking political hits over of the intersection of his family’s financial dealings and his own political career for some four decades,” he wrote. “Yet he has done nothing publicly to inoculate himself from the charge that his career is corruptly enriching his family, and now that is a serious liability.”
