john dowd
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/bill-barr-2649627878/</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 1220</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lev Parnas, a former business associate of Rudy Giuliani, made explosive allegations against outgoing Attorney General Bill Barr in a federal court filing on Tuesday. Parnas, who is under indictment for campaign finance violations and fraud charges, has accused Barr of timing his arrest last fall in order to prevent him from testifying at House impeachment hearings last fall....</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the new filing, Parnas lays out a series of events that he believes Barr helped engineer to secure his silence.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In late September, Parnas received a letter from House investigators asking him to preserve documents and prepare for a deposition. When Parnas told Giuliani about this, he was directed to attorney John Dowd, who had previously represented President Trump in connection with Robert Mueller's investigation of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair now serving time in prison. After securing <a href="https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1217219982872010752" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the president's personal approval</a>, Dowd took Parnas as a client.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On Oct. 8, a Tuesday, Dowd sent an email to a number of attorneys affiliated with Trump's defense team, calling the president "Boss" and promising that Dowd would "eliminate any doubt" that Parnas and Fruman would answer questions before Congress.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Dowd then sent a letter to House investigators informing them that Parnas and Fruman would not appear for their scheduled deposition on Thursday, Oct. 10.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The next day, Parnas and Fruman were arrested. Two of the attorneys copied on Dowd's email were the same people who had been scheduled to fly with them to Europe. That night, Barr, who had been informed about the indictment in advance, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/why-is-william-barr-meeting-with-rupert-murdoch" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">met</a> Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch for dinner in New York. The attorney general visited the Southern District offices the following morning on what aides described as <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-10/donors-arrested-giuliani-ukraine-campaign-finance" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a "routine" visit</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time of the arrest, however, the federal investigation into Parnas was not over, and did not in fact conclude for 11 more months, until a grand jury returned the fraud charges. It is not entirely clear why an immediate arrest was deemed necessary, although Parnas was described as a flight risk — on a trip the president's personal attorney was supposed to make with him.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Days after the arrest, Giuliani parted ways with his own attorney, Jon Sale, a prominent Miami lawyer Giuliani said he had retained for impeachment defense. Giuliani previously told Salon that Sale had been the person who first connected him with Parnas in 2018.<b> He and Sale also shared a significant client: Venezuelan financier Alejandro Betancourt, who was under investigation in a multibillion-dollar money laundering probe and also knew Parnas.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Within a few weeks of these events, Parnas fired Dowd, after what he later described in a TV interview as a jailhouse loyalty shakedown....</b></font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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