Giuliani Pals Won’t Comply With Impeachment Probe

Axios reports:

A pair of Rudy Giuliani’s business associates wrapped up in the Ukraine investigation will not comply with information and deposition requests from the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, their attorney John Dowd [photo] told the Miami Herald Monday.

The big picture: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are Trump donors who helped connect Giuliani with former Ukrainian prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yuri Lutsenko, who promoted allegations that Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire Shokin in 2016 because Shokin was investigating a gas company that employed Biden’s son, per the Washington Post.

President Trump’s and Giuliani’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden for this alleged corruption are now at the center of an impeachment inquiry.

The Daily Beast reports:

Dowd said “The ‘Committees’”—in scare quotes—violated their standard procedures by asking the two men to turn over documents within seven days and testify within 15.

“Considering the important factual questions and legal issues attendant to the alleged whistleblower, your investigation, your authority and requests for information, your charter should be amended to exhibit some semblance of due process, fairness, justice and common decency,” Dowd’s letter concluded.

Parnas and Fruman, two Soviet-born Floridians, have connected Giuliani to various Ukrainian officials, including the ex-prosecutor who Trump and Giuliani claim was fired at Biden’s behest to protect his son, Hunter Biden.