The attorney for Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas on Thursday released yet another recording of President Donald Trump huddling with donors behind closed doors and discussing policy.
The Daily Beast first reported the tape, followed by The Washington Post and Politico. Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, told the Post he’d also given a copy to House impeachment investigators.
Over 37 minutes in April 2018 — just days from the other recording of a Trump fundraiser event, made by Parnas’ associate Igor Fruman — Trump can be heard speaking about Republicans’ prospects in the 2018 midterm elections.
Unlike the previously released recording, more high-ranking Republicans besides Trump were in attendance: Then-Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who was subsequently subpoenaed in the criminal case against Parnas and Fruman, and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, also attended and spoke to donors.
And, unlike the other recorded fundraising event which was held at Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel, the event revealed in the recording Thursday took place at the President’s membership-based South Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.
In a clip from the recording posted by Politico, McDaniel can be seen walking into the room in which the event was held, spotting Parnas and greeting him warmly with a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she tells him in the tape, before asking Parnas whether he’d been to Mar-a-Lago before.
“Yes,” Parnas responds.
“Okay, then, well, forget it,” McDaniel responds jokingly.
“On a given day, the chairwoman greets hundreds if not thousands of people at events across the country,” an RNC spokesperson told multiple outlets in a statement. “This is nothing more than that.”
Over the course of the recording, Trump can be heard fielding questions and campaign suggestions from attendees about cultivating Hindu-American support, his Syria policy, and concerns about a financial services bill, the latter from an attendee who identifies himself as Bill Edwards.
Trump is heard asking Sessions about the bill.
“I see every piece of legislation through the Rules Committee, and I was unaware of this,” Sessions responds. “I told Bill, ‘You have to talk to the President about this.’”
The bulk of the recording consists of Sessions, McDaniel and Trump running through Republicans’ prospects for the upcoming midterm elections.
“The Democrats are energized, they want to take it back, they want to do everything they can do obstruct and resist, they have no message,” she’s heard saying at one point. “We know what they will do to our country. They will turn back the clock to the dark ages of Schumer and Pelosi.”
