Watching the latest James Comer hearing — in which two convicted fraudsters and someone who claims everything the FBI said he told them is false — is like sticking hot needles in my eyes.
To be fair, Tony Bobulinski has successfully filibustered Democratic questions. Though when Alexandra Ocasio Cortez asked him if he witnessed Joe Biden committing a crime, Bobulinski said that by meeting with Bobulinski, Biden was committing a crime.
Hopefully, Democrats will force Bobulinski to retract all the hearsay he has been peddling.
The only new claims in the hearing came from Lev Parnas.
He described some of what happened between Victoria Toensing and Bill Barr in 2019.
Ro Khanna: Did Bill Barr know that you were involved in getting this dirt?
Parnas: Absolutely. Bill, Bill Barr was informed of our investigation from the day he took office.
Khanna: Did you ever have a conversation with Bill Barr being lenient towards Dmitry, in Bill Barr’s role as Attorney General?
Parnas: I personally did not but I was witness to Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova, having a conversation with Bill Barr about Dmitry Firtash.
Khanna: What did they say to Bill Barr?
Parnas: Basically, they were telling him that the charges were false, and that he needs to drop the charges and, basically, end the case.
Khanna: And why did they tell him to drop the charges on this Russian [sic] oligarch?
Parnas: Because Dmitry Firtash was going to help us getting dirt on the Bidens, or whatever else the Trump campaign needed.
Khanna: So my understanding is you have the Trump campaign telling you to talk to a Russian [sic] oligarch to get dirt, on the President of the United States for political reasons, and then someone from the Trump campaign is talking to the Attorney General to drop the charges because this foreign national is helping get dirt on a political candidate?
Parnas: Absolutely.
He claimed that after Toensing had met with Barr, Rudy told him that Firtash would be okay if he played ball.
Parnas also claimed that his attorney reached out to Scott Brady in 2020, but got no response.
Remember that Brady looked into investigations into all the oligarchs from whom Rudy had been soliciting dirt in 2020, including Firtash, as well as Igor Kolomoisky. A reported investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky had been shut down by then — around the same time as Barr’s Chief of Staff sent him a text, the day after FBI obtained a warrant for Hunter Biden’s laptop, telling him a laptop was on the way.
Parnas repeated his past claims that Barr had him, and only him, arrested to shut him up. He also said that bank documents John Solomon shared with him had come from the FBI.
Update: Fixed honorary Irish spelling of AOC’s name.