Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born Jewish former affiliate of Rudy Giuliani who was a central determine in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, has introduced his bid for Congress in Miami.
He can be operating as a Democrat in Florida’s twenty seventh Congressional District, becoming a member of an already crowded race of Democrats searching for to unseat Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American who’s in her third congressional time period.
“I’ve spent years talking out, exposing corruption, and warning concerning the risks dealing with our democracy. Now it’s time to take that struggle immediately the place it belongs — to Congress,” Parnas wrote in a submit on X asserting his entry into the race.
Parnas, a Jewish Ukrainian-American businessman, rose to nationwide prominence through the impeachment proceedings towards Trump in 2019, when he turned on the president after serving to him and Giuliani attempt to discover damaging data in Ukraine about former President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. (The Senate acquitted Trump the next yr.)
Parnas and his enterprise companion, Igor Fruman, additionally cultivated ties with a number of Jewish figures and organizations, together with the distinguished Ukrainian rabbi Moshe Azman, who met with Giuliani in 2019. Parnas and Fruman met with Trump through the White Home Hanukkah social gathering in 2018.
“I’m operating for Congress as a result of we should stand as much as Donald Trump and his lackeys like Maria Salazar,” Parnas’ marketing campaign web site reads. “I’ve seen the swamp from the within. They know me in Washington, and I’m the final particular person they need with a seat in Congress and the ability to name them earlier than the folks.”
Parnas is just not the one Jewish determine from the previous Soviet Union who performed a task within the impeachment to be mounting a Democratic bid for nationwide workplace in Florida. Alex Vindman, who testified earlier than Congress as a Nationwide Safety Council staffer and later left the army after dealing with alleged bullying from Trump and his allies, is operating for Senate. His brother Eugene Vindman, who had been an ethics specialist on the White Home, was elected to Congress in Virginia final yr.
“I stepped up when my nation wanted a soldier, I reported corruption on the highest ranges of presidency, and now I’m stepping up once more to struggle for Floridians,” wrote Alex Vindman in his marketing campaign announcement in January.
In 2021, Parnas was convicted of federal marketing campaign finance violations tied to a scheme to commerce political contributions for help for a hashish firm and was sentenced to twenty months in jail. (Felons are barred from voting in Florida however not from operating for workplace.)
His marketing campaign did acknowledge his prison previous, saying it “included each skilled successes and extremely public challenges, together with his look in a extensively seen documentary and a interval of federal custody related to previous authorized points.”
Since ending his time period on residence confinement in September 2023, Parnas has rebranded himself as a vocal critic of Trump on his podcast and in media appearances. His son, Aaron, is a Gen Z influencer who burst onto TikTok in 2022 as a pro-Ukraine voice and now instructions an viewers as a liberal information commentator.
In a marketing campaign announcement on Thursday, Parnas stated he was operating for Congress “with a concentrate on cleansing up Washington’s corruption, holding the highly effective to account, strengthening affordability, increasing help for seniors, and bettering our desperately damaged immigration system.”
The Democratic main for Parnas’ district will happen on Aug. 18. The final election can be held on Nov. 3.
