CALLING IN FAVORS

Giuliani Associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman Leveraged Trump Connections in Ukraine Gas Meeting: Report

The men casually forecast the ousting of Naftogaz’ CEO and Ukrainian ambassador during talks over a potential gas deal.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two associates of Rudy Giuliani who allegedly helped scour Ukraine for detrimental information on Donald Trump’s domestic political opponents, boasted of their connections to the president in a meeting with Andrew Favorov, the No. 2 at Ukraine’s state-run gas company Naftogaz, the Associated Press reports. The two men, Favorov says, told him that to facilitate a deal in which large quantities of liquified natural gas from Texas would be sold to Ukraine they would have to call on their high-ranking GOP connections to remove two obstacles: Favorov’s boss and the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Favorov dismissed the conversation as an idle boast but was astonished when, within a few months, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev had been ousted and Trump had recalled U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat with a reputation as an anti-corruption crusader. Giuliani has publicly acknowledged pushing to get Yovanovitch replaced, however in a text exchange with the AP on Sunday, Giuliani said he had no interest in efforts by Parnas and Fruman to land a gas deal. “I had no involvement in a deal. Not a partner, not an advisor,” Giuliani wrote.