by Chuck Ross
Rep. Adam Schiff released inaccurate information last week regarding a text message between Rudy Giuliani and a former associate concerning Ukraine-related matters, according to a news report.
The California Democrat claimed in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Jan. 14 that Soviet-born businessman Lev Parnas sent a message to Giuliani on July 3, 2019, about a potential meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Schiff asserted that Parnas’s message to Giuliani that he was “trying to get us mr Z” referred to an attempt to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Mr. Parnas continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky,” Schiff wrote to Nadler of the message.
But according to Politico, unredacted communications that Schiff has not released indicate that Parnas was referring to Mykola Zlechovsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas firm that had Hunter Biden as a director.
Parnas sent Giuliani notes from an interview he conducted with Zlochevsky days after the July 3 text message.
“mr Z answers my brother,” Parnas wrote, the communications, which Politico obtained, show.
Giuliani and Parnas worked together to collect and disseminate information about Biden’s ties to Burisma. As part of the effort, Parnas helped set interviews for Giuliani with Ukrainians who claimed to have information for the project.
Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his office by pressuring Zelensky to open investigations into Hunter and Joe Biden in exchange for military assistance.
Schiff has previously been accused of releasing false information in Trump-related investigations.
Donald Trump Jr. accused Schiff of being behind leaking a Dec. 8, 2017, story to CNN alleging that he received an email containing a trove of WikiLeaks documents on Sept. 4, 2016.
The timing would have been significant because WikiLeaks did not release the documents to the public until days later. But it turned out that CNN’s source provided the wrong date for the email. It was instead sent to Trump Jr. on Sept. 14, 2016, a day after the WikiLeaks materials in question were publicized.
Schiff has also acknowledged that he falsely claimed not to know the substance of the whistleblower complaint that triggered President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
Schiff admitted that a CIA analyst met with one of Schiff’s staffers before filing the complaint. The aide reportedly briefed Schiff on the analyst’s allegations about Trump.
Schiff also came under fire for reading a parody of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, which is at the center of the impeachment push, during a Sept. 26 House Intelligence Committee hearing.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Background Photo “Adam Schiff Talking” by CSPAN.
