Live look at Rudy (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
John Dowd informed the House Intelligence Committee that he wouldn’t be producing his two clients, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, in a short letter written in Comic Sans to the shock and dismay of the class of legal professionals who had never seen John Dowd work before. And while Dowd’s writing style, legal research, and all around conduct may leave a lot to be desired, his instincts remain as sharp as ever — his boys were picked up by authorities on campaign finance violations.
Fruman and Parnas are soldiers in the Giuliani family, which is like a lot of operations accused of organized law-breaking, except instead of using influence and intimidation to dominate Vegas, they use bumbling and Epoch Times headlines to litter a presidency with incriminating evidence. They’re a bit less RICO and a lot more LOCO. Fruman and Parnas are described in the press as Giuliani “associates” which is never a flattering title outside of the law firm setting (and is it really all that flattering there?) who allegedly set Giuliani up on the wild goose chase in Ukraine that threatens to end in the historical stain of impeachment:
Starting in November 2018, Giuliani told CNN, Parnas and Fruman introduced him to former and current Ukrainian officials who provided information that Giuliani claims is damaging to some of Trump’s political enemies, including Biden. House Democrats have subpoenaed documents from Giuliani relating to those interactions.
From earlier subpoenas, we’ve already learned that Giuliani’s arrested pals leaned on a congressman to push for the recall of the ambassador to Ukraine in part at the behest of the Ukrainian government, which is essentially the burglary in this here Watergate ensuring that Fruman will end up with a talk show deal as the G. Gordon Dimwitty of this operation.
But again, hats off to Dowd who kept his guys from delivering testimony to the House that would only risk undermining their defense efforts. Now he’s got to manage the much more difficult task of keeping their jail time to a minimum (or keeping them out of jail… though the case looks pretty damning at this juncture).
It might be time to write the prosecutors about setting up a proffer to discuss Giuliani. Might I suggest Times New Roman for that one?
Two men connected to Giuliani’s Ukraine efforts arrested on campaign finance charges [CNN]
Earlier: John Dowd Writes Letter In Comic Sans Because He’s Through Pretending He’s Not A Clown
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.