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Two months before Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges this week, he met in a Los Angeles conference room with the man who has been inextricably linked to all of his legal troubles.
Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani and his fixer in Ukraine, struggled to contain his emotions as he apologized to First Sun for helping then-President Donald Trump dig up evidence of political cronyism that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment trial and a series of criminal investigations into Hunter Biden over drugs, money and guns.
“We both deserve a second chance,” Hunter Biden told a crying Parnas. “We both deserve a second chance,” Parnas replied, bumping his fists.
The shocking exchange came toward the end of the two-and-a-half-hour confessional/documentary, which premiered in Brooklyn on Saturday. “From Russia With Lev” will screen in arthouse theaters this week and premiere on MSNBC on Friday. MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow will serve as executive producer on the project, marking her first documentary for the network.
According to producers, the Biden-Parnas meeting wasn’t something the filmmakers envisioned when they began conducting more than 30 hours of interviews with Parnas and his associates — and the summit didn’t actually happen until July.
Parnas was part of a political effort that ultimately helped Trump look for corruption among his political rivals in Ukraine as he faced special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into 2016 election interference that paved the way for Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives. Parnas’s efforts were aimed at preemptively discrediting both Mueller and Joe Biden, who was considering another run for the White House.
Hunter Biden, who pleaded guilty this week to a tax evasion case and faces up to 17 years in prison, and faces an additional 25 years for lying on a gun application following his June conviction, appeared to offer a sincere message of forgiveness. “It takes a really great man to not only admit that he was wrong, but to do it publicly, and on a stage,” Biden said.
Parnas and his associates were subsequently arrested, convicted and sentenced to 20 months in prison for their alleged involvement in a scheme to funnel foreign funds to members of Congress in exchange for helping to oust the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
“For the record, I wasn’t very sympathetic,” Hunter Biden said with a laugh.
Parnas has since become an outspoken critic of Trump, calling him “unfit for duty” and an ambitious dictator. He has also repeatedly and publicly regretted being caught up in a right-wing movement to pressure Ukrainian authorities to open a criminal investigation into the Biden family over Hunter Biden’s service on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Among conservatives, Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma represents something that is often (and incorrectly) omitted about the Biden crime family; Parnas has testified before Congress that it is not.
“I’m ashamed of myself. I truly believed we were helping America, but now I look back and see that we destroyed America,” Parnas tells the camera in the new film. “We’re so divided. People are at each other’s throats. And the sad thing is, that’s exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted, and we gave it to him on a silver platter.”
Hunter Biden is no stranger to the image-restoration tour circuit. He, too, published a book documenting his downfall. While Parnas was mired in conspiracy theories, political dirty tricks and disinformation, Biden penned a memoir about his struggles with addiction and thanked Parnas during the meeting for making amends as if he were working a 12-step program.
But Biden, who has taken a fairly defiant stance against the charges, also saw it as an opportunity to question Parnas about documents that would later come back to haunt him in the form of a tax lawsuit.
Those bank documents helped federal prosecutors build a criminal case in California for unpaid taxes on cash Biden used to fund drugs and prostitutes. The Delaware gun case had been so embarrassing for the Bidens, with more dirt on the family seemingly coming to light every day, that rather than subject them to another harrowing trial, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty on Thursday. His sentencing on the gun charges is scheduled for mid-November, and his sentencing on the tax charges is scheduled for mid-December.
The meeting, which took place while Hunter Biden was still planning his defense against the tax allegations, came as he was paid to appear on camera with his former nemesis.
“How did they get my bank records? My bank records aren’t even on a computer,” Biden asked.
Parnas countered that the documents were secretly subpoenaed by the FBI and circulated in conservative media, and that Giuliani himself had taken them to the Justice Department.
Biden, a Yale Law School graduate, added: “Since when has Rudy Giuliani’s outlandish tactics in cahoots with Trump extended to the Department of Justice? Since when have Trump’s minions within the Department of Justice started conspiring against me?”
Response: Almost instantaneous.
Towards the end of the meeting, Biden appeared to exonerate Parnas: “I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, you’re a hero to me,” Biden said.
The scene is painful to watch, but it shows that resentment doesn’t have to last forever. It provides a fascinating ending to what Maddow herself described as a “very outlandish story.” But surely, the grace these two men displayed in front of the camera is truly exceptional in today’s politics.
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