>> Rudy Giuliani's business associate, Lev Parnas, is talking to reporters.
Not only is he complying with impeachment investigators, but he's also talking to reporters
about what he knows, how he worked with Rudy Giuliani and the Trump administration.
And just how many people within the Trump administration knew about Trump's dirty dealings
when it came to Ukraine, and the congressionally appropriated military funding that was supposed
to go to Ukraine.
Now, as we know, he withheld that money and demanded that Ukraine announce an investigation
to Donald Trump.
So what exactly did Parnas have to say in these interviews?
He talked to both Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper, we're gonna show you clips from both.
And in this next clip, I would argue, you hear something that is the most damning when
it comes to Donald Trump.
>> What do you think is the main inaccuracy or the main lie that's being told that you
feel like you can correct?
>> That the President didn't know what was going on.
President Trump know exactly what was going on.
He was aware of all of my movements.
I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the President.
I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials, I mean, they have
no reason to speak to me.
Why would President Zelensky's inner circle, or Administer Avakov, or all these people,
or President Poroshenko meet with me, who am I?
They were told to meet with me, and that's the secret that they're trying to keep.
I was on the ground, doing their work.
>> We all knew or at least suspected that Donald Trump was in on all of this.
Because who is the person who stands to gain the most from this announcement of the investigation
into the Bidens?
Donald Trump, who's political rival is Joe Biden.
In fact, Donald Trump himself, in front of a helicopter, urged China to investigate Joe
Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who at that time, before this whole debacle with Bernie, was
really spiking in the polls, right?
And so he didn't really hide the fact that he was in favor of these types of announcements
that would hurt his political rivals.
And I think that Parnas makes a really good argument there.
Who is Lev Parnas, and why was he, out of all these people, encouraged to work with
Trump administration officials and Zelensky?
>> Yeah, if you want the first interview of the figure of Lev Parnas to not win as many
people over, then don't seed the ground with a transcript that shows you wanting investigations,
you on live TV asking for investigations.
All of your cronies in the media continually pushing even to this day for investigations.
The Republicans in the Senate were gonna protect you, were still trying to bring in Joe and
Hunter Biden in lieu of investigations.
They all want it so bad that when Lev Parnas comes out and says, yeah, I wasn't over there
randomly, they wanted me to get these investigations.
It is very easy to believe, even if Lev Parnas and his whole thing gives us reasons to not
necessarily 100% believe him.
>> Right, I mean look, I think Lev Parnas who's, of course, facing some federal charges
for campaign fundraising that he's not supposed to be doing, illegal campaign contributions
to the Trump campaign, yes, of course-
>> Another thing he has in common with Trump.
>> So there's criminality there on his part, but I think part of the reason why he's being
honest.
He's releasing documents, remember that, we talked about that on the show yesterday, to
help bolster what he's saying.
And he wants the feds to take it easy on him, which is part of the reason why he's complying
with this investigation.
But in this next clip, he talks about motivation.
So what was it that Trump cared about the most?
>> When you say that the president knew about your movements and knew what you were doing.
Are you saying specifically, and I wanna sort of drill down on that, that the President
was aware that you and Mr. Giuliani were working on this effort in Ukraine to basically try
to hurt Joe Biden's political career, he knew about that?
>> Basically, yeah, it was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and also, Rudy had a personal
thing with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger.
And that was another thing that they were looking into, but it was never about corruption.
It was strictly about the Barisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
>> So it's clear, I mean, he's essentially really reinforcing what we had already suspected.
And one of the other things that we suspected was that Donald Trump and the Trump campaign,
the Trump team, the Trump administration.
Everyone associated with him were trying to push this conspiracy theory about how, no,
Trump was not colluding with Russia to get an upper hand in the 2016 election.
In fact, it was Ukraine that was helping Hillary Clinton win the election.
That was one of the conspiracy theories that we kept hearing about over and over again.
And according to some of the Parnas revelations, he worked with Trump in order to spread misinformation
about that conspiracy theory.
So Parnas played an essential role in arranging an interview with a Ukrainian prosecutor who
claimed there was a plot in his country to help Hillary Clinton.
And then urging a senior contact at American First Action to get Trump's eldest son, Donald
Trump Jr., to tweet it, which he did.
Links to stories about Ukraine that Parnas sent to America First Action finance director
Joseph Ahearn were tweeted by both the president and Trump Jr., the material shows.
And again, that's just another piece of evidence showing that Trump was very much aware of
what was going on.
This was very much an orchestrated effort to spread this conspiracy theory about Hillary
Clinton.
>> And that includes some other figures too, because some of the documents that were revealed
earlier this week from Lev Parnas involved text messages that, in a very similar form,
ended up being an op-ed by John Solomon.
One of the figures who helped to initially spread the Ukraine conspiracy theory, and
he also coordinated with Sean Hannity.
So it really does involve all of those people who've been floating around Donald Trump over
the past couple of years.
>> Exactly, so let's go to the next clip where Parnas talks about his personal relationship
with Donald Trump.
>> He said about you and Mr. Fruman, I don't know those gentlemen, I don't know about them,
I don't know what they do.
You're saying that was not a true statement from the president.
>> He lied.
>> The president has said, when you were arrested, president of the United States said he didn't
know you.
>> I don't know those gentlemen.
>> I welcome him to say that even more.
Every time he says that, I'll show him another picture.
>> He's lying.
>> Again, something we suspected.
>> Yeah, and it's, I mean, the whole thing is frustrating, I feel like I say this every
day.
So we have to work overtime to prove what is obviously true, even though it'll then
just be disregarded anyway.
So the idea that Donald Trump knew this guy, I mean, he can show as many pictures as he
wants, we can show all these pictures.
We know for a fact that Rudy Giuliani was working with the guy, they're cavorting around
on Instagram Live and all that stuff, they were over there working together.
Rudy Giuliani for a couple of years now has been the unpaid henchman of Donald Trump.
Why did Rudy Giuliani choose Lev Parnas to go, and they're continually taking trips and
continually communicating, all of this stuff?
The idea that, what does it take, 100 photos, 200 photos to prove that Donald Trump has
a connection to this guy?
Donald Trump still hasn't disavowed Rudy Giuliani, and Rudy Giuliani was best buds with this
guy.
They were clearly working together on this.
>> It's just so, at this point, with all the different people within the Trump administration
who have testified against him, in both closed and open House hearings.
The documents that were released by Parnas, the interviews that are so specific in detail
with Parnas, all of this evidence.
Look, you couldn't pay to get research this good, this is such a layup for Democrats.
Do I think that Trump's gonna be removed, okay, do you think that the Senate trial is
gonna go the way that it should go, where lawmakers do the right thing and they remove
him?
No, I already know how the Senate is gonna handle the situation.
But again, this is a layup for Democrats, it's here, it's here there's so much damning
evidence.
There's so much material for your campaign ads.
I hope they wake up and they realize that they should be using the stuff now in their
campaign ads, now, right now.
>> Just read those text messages and then say, why are the Senate Republicans trying
to protect these guys?
These apparent, these guys have fantasized about killing US officers.
And so you said you couldn't buy research this good.
You also unfortunately can't buy media cover for a politician as good as Donald Trump gets.
So I heard, Sean Hannity is already a part of this story.
But Sean Hannity is also, because he's a media figure, every day, he's opining on the story.
And what he had to say today is that the Lev Parnas stuff shows how desperate Democrats
are.
They're pinning their hopes on this guy?
This guy who's gonna go down for multiple crimes, is involved with organized crime,
all this stuff?
And think about how maddening that is, that the Democrats look bad because Rudy Giuliani
has been working with and cavorting around with this fairly obvious kooky criminal.
So as long as Donald Trump, as long as his henchmen are laughable, then the Democrats
will look bad if they ask why he's surrounding himself with criminals constantly, year after
year.
And Sean Hannity, in this case, he brings on Rudy Giuliani.
Ask him if you wanna know why people are working with Lev Parnas.
>> But he doesn't wanna know that.
>> He doesn't wanna know.
>> I mean, and let's not forget, and we're gonna talk about this in more detail later
in the show.
But Devin Nunes, who is a ranking congressman who took part, of course, in the impeachment
investigation is very much implicated in all of this.
It's insane, and so there's a lot of criminality going around.
And the very people on the Republican side who are supposed to be holding Donald Trump
accountable happen to be implicated in the very situation that Trump is being investigated
in, it's insane.
So are we going to allow this type of rot to take place in our country, is this what
we're okay with?
And that's what Democrats should be asking in their campaign ads.
>> Yeah, and really fast, we keep talking about precedent.
And that is one of the reasons we wanted impeachment to be pursued, is that we were worried about
precedent being set.
Think about the precedent that's being set.
So many politicians are being trained day by day through this story that, man, even
if you make your crimes really obvious, you'll probably be okay.
If you're the least bit savvy, the least bit clever in the way you go about this.
You don't make your communications as easily trackable.
You don't surround yourself with obvious rogues and thieves, and people with no honor whatsoever
that are gonna turn on you the second they can.
Then as long as you don't do that, you are gonna be 100% fine.
Any corruption you want, any crimes you wanna commit, you'll probably be just fine.
>> Before we end this story, I do wanna go to one member comment, and it's from Farmer
Phil.
Please, please, please talk about the lawyer's creepy looks.
I was not going to do that.
>> Which lawyer?
>> The lawyer sitting next to Lev Parnas.
I don't know if we can go to B roll featuring Lev Parnas sitting next to his lawyer, but
I see you.
>> I totally noticed the same thing.
In fact, I would be a little freaked out if I were Rachel Maddow cuz he's giving her the
look.
I'm sure he doesn't intend to, he's giving her the look of death.
>> He has not blinked yet.
>> Look at him, look at him.
>> No blink.
>> Look at the lawyer, the lawyer freaks me out, but anyway-
>> No, that's what I was talking about, the lawyer didn't blink once in that video.