Lev Parnas predicts what’s on the horizon for ex-allies Trump and Giuliani: ‘Prison and jumpsuits’

Lev Parnas has offered a scathing prediction for what’s looming in the near future for former president Donald Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“Prison and jumpsuits,” he said. “They will be cellmates for the rest of their lives.”

The Ukrainian-American businessman and former close associate of Mr Giuliani spoke to The Independent after giving fiery testimony this week at a House Republican impeachment hearing into President Joe Biden.

During the House Oversight Committee’s 20 March hearing, Mr Parnas did not mince his words.

He testified that he had found “precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality”.

But, instead he claimed that Mr Trump, Mr Giuliani and their associates “lied to” the American people when they pushed falsehoods “knowing it would undermine the strength of our nation”.

He said that Mr Giuliani, then Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, was “tasked” with “finding dirt” on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Mr Trump and his allies then planned to use this information to “damage the Bidens’ reputations and secure the 2020 election for Trump,” Mr Parnas told the committee.

Speaking to The Independent on Friday, Mr Parnas said that it was poignant that Mr Trump, who has a penchant for posting on his Truth Social platform, “has not tweeted, not made one comment about me after the testimony.”

He said he believes that the former president hasn’t publicly remarked on his testimony for one of two reasons.

“Either he’s a coward…because he’s scared for the truth to come out,” he said. “Or maybe dementia has set in, and he just doesn’t remember who I am.”

His comments about Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani come as the pair face a mountain of legal battles.

In Georgia, where they are codefendants in a sprawling RICO case, they are each facing decades in prison. They have both pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani for comment.

Aside from the 2024 Republican frontrunner and his former associate, Mr Parnas also slammed members of Congress in his testimony, accusing Rep Pete Sessions, former Rep Devin Nunes and Senator Ron Johnson of having “understood they were pushing a false narrative” in the runup to the 2020 election.

Asked how these elected officials should be held to account, Mr Parnas told The Independent: “We should have a congressional hearing on how Russian disinformation could get into the halls of Congress, the DOJ and the FBI and be used to impeach a sitting US president.”

He questioned whether or not individuals did this “knowingly” or “willingly”.

“Or was it just because they’re blatantly incompetent, stupid?” Mr Parnas asked.

“The only information ever pushed about the Bidens and Ukraine has come from Russia and Russian agents, which everyone sitting here today knows,” Mr Parnas testified on Wednesday, pointing to the recent indictment of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.

Earlier this year, Mr Smirnov was charged with providing “false derogatory information” about the Bidens’ business dealings. His arrest dealt a huge setback to the Republican-led probe, which so far has seen unsuccessful efforts to support allegations of the Biden family members’ corruption.

Mr Parnas reflected that, after sitting through the eight-hour long hearing: “I was truly disappointed. I’m embarrassed for our country.”

“The world saw a kangaroo court,” he said, adding that he believes Republicans are using the inquiry as “a political sham” rather than to seek the truth.

“They have no evidence, they don’t have the votes and it needs to stop,” he said.

At the chaotic hearing, Democratic Rep Stephen Lynch went so far as to say that the impeachment effort has “actually provided more evidence to impeach Donald Trump for a third time than you have in so much as laying a glove on Joe Biden“.