Giuliani Associate Hires John Dowd To Represent Him In House Probes

Billionaire co-founder of Galleon Group Raj Rajaratnam, right, enters Manhattan federal court with his attorney John Dowd, Friday, April 29, 2011, in New York. Jury deliberations continue in the trial of Rajaratnam, who is accused of gaining $63 million from trading on illegal stock tips. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
FILE - In this April 29, 20111, file photo, Attorney John Dowd walks in New York. Down, one of the key lawyers in President Donald Trump’s corner navigated a popular United States senator through crisis, produced a... FILE - In this April 29, 20111, file photo, Attorney John Dowd walks in New York. Down, one of the key lawyers in President Donald Trump’s corner navigated a popular United States senator through crisis, produced a damning investigative report that drove a baseball star from the game and, early in his career, took on organized crime as a Justice Department prosecutor. Dowd assumed a more prominent place on the legal team after another lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, took a reduced role. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File) MORE LESS
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Rudy Giuliani associate and potential Ukraine middleman Lev Parnas has hired former Trump attorney John Dowd to represent him.

Dowd confirmed the representation in a message to TPM, saying that it was in connection with congressional inquiries. Parnas separately confirmed to Mother Jones that he hired Dowd.

Parnas drew TPM’s attention first for his connection to a bizarre $325,000 contribution that flowed from one of his companies into the pro-Trump America First Action Super PAC.

The Soviet-born but Miami-based businessman is a longtime friend of Giuliani’s, and reportedly played a role in brokering the former New York City’s mayor’s attempt to pressure Kyiv into fabricating dirt about the origins of the Mueller investigation and Joe Biden.

Giuliani has said that Parnas began to introduce him to Ukrainian officials in November 2018.

Parnas reportedly traveled to Kyiv in 2019 with another Soviet-born business associate named Igor Fruman as part of the Giuliani effort. The two wound up tangling with a local oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky in a mysterious interaction that ended with Parnas and Fruman claiming to fear for their lives.

The pair are the focus of inquiries by the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight Committees into the joint Giuliani-Trump pressure campaign, which have pushed the House Democratic majority towards impeaching Trump.

This isn’t Dowd’s first brush with Trumpworld: the attorney negotiated with Mueller while representing the President, and left a notorious voicemail for Michael Flynn’s lawyer trying to dissuade the ex-national security adviser from cooperating with the investigation.

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Notable Replies

  1. John Dowd?

    Really?!

    You know how radioactive the Trump administration has become to any competent lawyers in DC when someone is forced to hire John Dowd.

  2. Avatar for ghost ghost says:

    Okie dokie. You know that hiring a guy who is already toxic with both the Congress and the Trumpsters may not be the best idea, right?

  3. I would have thought that he would be on speaking terms with Roy Cohn…

    At least when the sun isn’t shining…

  4. The comedy writes itself…

  5. There’s that Kolomoisky name again…

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