Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes spoke to host Martha MacCallum on Fox News Thursday and claimed that he never met Lev Parnas. Nunes also suggested his alleged phone conversations with the Rudy Giuliani associate has not been confirmed. In response, Parnas’ lawyer, Joseph Bondy, took to Twitter to address Nunes’ claim, Newsweek reports.
“Hey @DevinNunes—Lev remembers what you spoke about. You don’t remember?” he tweeted.
Nunes’ alleged calls with both Giuliani and Parnas — as well as Giuliani associate Igor Fruman — are connected to the impeachment investigation into Donald Trump. Parnas and Fruman are accused of helping Giuliani in the reported pressure campaign on Ukraine said to be headed by the president. If the accusations against Nunes are correct, they will implicate him in the impeachment probe his committee is investigating.
During Nunes’ appearance on Fox News, MacCallum pressed him if a call with Parnas is something he would remember.
“You have to remember, we are the House Intelligence Committee, Oversight Committee. So we get calls from people every day. All walks of life. I get them from all over the world. From allies and people that aren’t our allies.”
Nunes spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this week and suggested that he didn’t “really recall” the name Parnas. However, Nunes did admit to the possibility that he spoke with the Giuliani associate on the phone.
“I’ll go back and check on my records. But it seems very unlikely that I would be taking calls from random people.”
This is the defense @DevinNunes is sticking with? Like fr fr? pic.twitter.com/fCcYqe8mSn
— Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) December 6, 2019
As The Inquisitr reported, Bondy claims that Parnas is willing to testify before Congress that Nunes met with former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin last December. The alleged visit was reportedly intended to help Nunes get dirt on Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden, as well as other Democrats.
In response to CNN and Daily Beast reports on his alleged meetings with Ukrainian officials, Nunes claims he is going to sue both publications .
“These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth,” Nunes said, speaking with Breitbart .
Nunes previously pushed the theory that Ukraine — not Russia — meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Trump and his allies have pushed the theory during the impeachment probe and been a source of criticism. Fiona Hill, the top official on Russian affairs at the National Security Council, suggested that such theories play into the hands of Russia.