Former Giuliani Ally Accuses Trump of ‘Blatantly’ Working With Russia ‘To Sow More Misinformation’

A former aide of Rudy Giuliani denounced ex-President Donald Trump for having 'blatant” ties with Russia. Trump's former attorney and ardent opponent, Michael Cohen, posted a YouTube clip of his podcast Mea Culpa to X, formerly Twitter, on March 30. According to Newsweek, Ukrainian-American Businessman Lev Parnas, who has previously worked with Giuliani, was a guest on the program. Cohen posed a question to Parnas: “Would you say Trump either has worked or is currently working with the Russians to sow more misinformation, disinformation, malinformation?” In response, Parnas agreed: “It's blatant.”

Parnas, who was found guilty of fraud and campaign financing and served a 20-month jail term in 2021, went on to add, “They are still pushing the same Russian information...you still have Trump's inner circle pushing that, not only that, but you now have Paul Manafort coming into the mix. For people who don't know who Paul Manafort is, that is a direct link into the Kremlin...Just because he spent a year in prison doesn't mean that those relationships are dead.”

Trump's staff is allegedly in talks with Paul Manafort, the chairman of his 2016 campaign, to help organize the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, as reported by CNN. Although it's unclear what role Trump intends to have Manafort play in the 2024 election campaign, his shaky Russian ties history puts him in a precarious position.

Manafort was convicted of financial fraud in 2019 after special counsel Robert Mueller probed his alleged association with the Russian government in 2016. Mueller's 448-page report, which was made public in 2019, highlighted Manafort's work with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs during his tenure as Trump's campaign chairman. The investigation, however, did not find any evidence of Russian involvement with Trump's campaign but pointed to a high level of influence in campaign aides like Manafort.

Earlier in March, Parnas said that certain Republican lawmakers were 'doing the bidding' of Russia by trying to obtain 'dirt' on President Biden for his 2020 campaign at a hearing held by the GOP-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Hunter Biden, The Hill reported. “No credible source has ever provided proof of criminal activity […] no respectable Ukrainian official has ever said that the Biden’s did anything illegal,” Parnas declared, adding that he had 'zero evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine.'

"The American people have been lied to by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and various cohorts of individuals in government and media positions," Parnas slammed Trump and others in his testimony. “The only information ever pushed on the Bidens in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only: Russia and Russian agents... The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin,” he concluded.