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Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. We had a significant plot twist: Federal prosecutors indicted two businessmen who had earlier been called to testify in the House impeachment inquiry. We have an account of how their arrest went down. |
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What happened today |
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A dramatic airport arrest |
Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for us, said federal prosecutors probably had the indictment ready to go for a while and were keeping tabs on Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. When the two got one-way tickets out of the country, she said, the prosecutors realized that they had to move. |
My colleague Mike Schmidt got an eyewitness account of the arrests in the Lufthansa lounge in the B concourse of Dulles International Airport on Wednesday. Here's what he heard: |
| They were indulging themselves in the free drinks and food while talking on the phone and waiting for their overnight flight to Frankfurt. Around 5:45 p.m., the men and the other first class travelers were invited to board before all the other passengers. As they made their way down a corridor toward their plane, two plainclothes officers stepped out and stopped them. |
| "We need to see your passports," one of the officers said. |
| The passengers took them out, and the officers determined who was standing in front of them. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman were told to turn around. As they made their way back into the terminal, they were greeted by a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes officers who arrested them. |
What were Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman up to? |
At first glance, the two men might seem peripheral to the events that the House is investigating. But they were involved in the Ukraine affair from the beginning, dating to Mr. Parnas's job as Mr. Giuliani's fixer in Ukraine. |
This evening I stopped by the desk of my colleague Ken Vogel, who revealed Mr. Parnas's involvement in Mr. Giuliani's Ukraine efforts, to get a sense of why they matter to the impeachment investigation. |
Why are these two men so important to understanding the whole Ukraine scandal? |
They were Rudy Giuliani's enablers and facilitators in his Ukrainian expedition. They connected Mr. Giuliani to the Ukrainian prosecutors who provided both the information and the potential investigations that are at the center of President Trump's interest in Ukraine. They were at the very front of all of this activity that led to what became the whistle-blower complaint. |
Why did that activity raise alarm bells? |
Their ability to get Congressman Sessions to take up their cause on such a niche issue that might not have been on his radar — helping to oust the American ambassador to Ukraine — is precisely the type of thing that campaign finance watchdogs warn of when they bemoan the power of money of politics. |
How valuable can they be to federal prosecutors, who've clearly been investigating them long before the impeachment investigation? |
It depends who the prosecutors are after. The two men could certainly flip and provide plenty of information about Rudy Giuliani. I have a source who saw Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Giuliani together not infrequently at the Trump hotel here in Washington. |
What about to Congress? They were supposed to be important witnesses in the impeachment investigation this week before they were arrested. |
They could be very useful to Congress, but maybe not as much in the impeachment inquiry. They don't have a ton of access or visibility into Trump himself, so it could be a bit of a bank shot. But in another way, they could be extremely useful. Congress has shown a great interest in the outsourcing of foreign policy, and these guys are right in the middle of that. |
What's next |
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump will hold a campaign rally in Minneapolis, his first since the impeachment investigation began. |
On Friday, House investigators are due to interview the career diplomat and former American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whose ouster was sought by Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and many in the Trump administration. Despite the White House's attempts to block cooperation by State Department employees, Ms. Yovanovitch has signaled to House staff members that she is willing to speak to them. |
What else we're reading |
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