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Democrats are pressing the House Ethics Committee to look into assertions by CNN and the Daily Beast that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and a blinkered defender of President Trump, worked with an indicted Ukrainian American to gather dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden in Europe at taxpayer expense.

But as tempting as it may be to believe the worst about Nunes, given his furious spewing of unsubstantiated allegations during the impeachment hearings, people need to look at the person behind the allegations, Lev Parnas, and his supposed source, former top Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin.

Parnas is one of two Soviet emigres who worked with Trumps personal lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, to advance several narratives in Ukraine that were designed to help Trump. These include the notions that Ukrainians meddled in the 2016 campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton and that then-Vice President Joe Bidens efforts to get Ukraine to crack down on Shokin and other officials accused of corruption were a smokescreen designed to protect his son, who held a lucrative board seat on a Ukrainian energy company also suspected of corruption.

So much corruption, its hard to keep track of it all. And I almost forgot: Parnas himself is under indictment in the United States for allegedly funneling foreign contributions into U.S. political campaigns.

According to the Daily Beast, attorney Ed MacMahon said Parnas helped arrange meetings and calls in Europe for Nunes and his staff late last year to help Nunes investigative work, although the nature of the investigations was not disclosed. And according to CNN, lawyer Joseph A. Bondy said Parnas is willing to tell Congress about meetings [Nunes] had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor [Shokin] to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.

The Daily Beast backed up its reporting with receipts: Congressional records show Nunes traveled to Europe from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2018. Three of his aides [Derek] Harvey, Scott Glabe and George Pappas traveled with him, per the records. U.S. government funds paid for the groups four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000, the Beast reported. The travel came as Nunes, in his role on the House Intelligence Committee, was working to investigate the origins of special counsel Robert Muellers probe into Russian election meddling.

Just Security, a nonpartisan, security-focused news outlet from New York University, put together an oh-so-helpful timeline stitching together the allegations about Nunes with information developed in the course of the impeachment investigation about efforts by Parnas, Giuliani and others to discredit Biden, oust then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and other skulduggery by pro-Trump forces.

It all looks bad for Nunes, who has threatened to bring federal criminal charges against the Daily Beast and CNN for advancing what he called a fake news story. Yet there are still reasons to look twice before leaping to judgment here.

For starters, the stories were built on comments not by Parnas, but by lawyers representing him in his criminal case. And though the Daily Beast and CNN each used a different lawyer, both pieces are based on hearsay one of Nunes favorite words! Even assuming the lawyers are accurately representing what Parnas told them, Parnas was relaying not his own words, but Shokins.

More important, though, Democrats have rejected the Parnas- and Shokin-fueled narratives about Biden and Yovanovitch as debunked conspiracy theories and smear campaigns. Its hard to characterize someone as an opportunistic liar in one venue, then turn around and portray him a clarion of truth in another. Do they really want to rehabilitate Parnas and Shokin as witnesses for the sake of roasting Nunes?

Granted, theres plenty of precedent for that (see, e.g., Rick Gates). And the ethics complaint filed by the Democratic Coalition makes an intriguing argument that Nunes interviews with key Ukrainian figures like Shokin make him a potential fact witness in the impeachment inquiry, something that not only should have been disclosed, but also should have rendered him ineligible to serve on that inquiry.

Still, Im not ready to believe anything Parnas or Shokin says about ... anybody. Parnas in particular has an incentive to entice House Democrats to grant him immunity to testify. Such a grant could conceivably damage federal prosecutors ability to convict him on the campaign donations charges.

The lesson for Nunes is clear, though. Its the same one taught by the cliche about what happens when you lie down with dogs.

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Opinion: Should we believe worst about Devin Nunes on Ukraine? - Los Angeles Times

The alleged Ukraine whistleblower did not disclose on his complaint form that he had met with a congressional committee despite contacting a House Intelligence Committee aide on Adam Schiffs staff before filing the complaint because nothing of "substance" was discussed.

According to documents reviewed by CBS News, the whistleblower contacted the Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson on Oct. 8 to explain the details of his prior meeting with Democratic majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee before the complaint was filed.

In his Aug. 12 complaint, the whistleblower claimed President Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to order an investigation into a corrupt Ukrainian energy company that the son of his potential political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, was working for.

The follow-up contact with Atkinson happened three days after it was discovered he had not informed the ICIG of his communications with the Schiff aide before he filed his complaint. His contact with Atkinson happened on the same day news broke that he previously worked with a 2020 Democratic candidate, which was later reported by the Washington Examiner to be former vice president Joe Biden.

Confirming he had contacted the committee, the whistleblower claimed that nothing significant had been discussed and that the committee aide told him to go through official channels, according to the Oct. 18 "Memorandum of Investigative Activity" that was given to House and Senate Intelligence Committee leadership by Atkinson.

The memo described the committee aide telling the alleged whistleblower to: "'Do it right, hire a lawyer, and contact the ICIG.' So that is what the COMPLAINANT did. At the time, COMPLAINANT did not even know what the ICIG was."

According to the memo. the whistleblower believed that "based on getting guidance on a procedural question, and that no substance of the actual disclosure was discussed, COMPLAINANT did not feel, based on the way the form question was worded, that it was necessary to check that box." The whistleblower left the box blank, though it was required for him to provide who else knew about the complaint, on the whistleblower disclosure form.

On Sep. 19, Schiff denied to reporters he knew anything about the whistleblower report. But Republicans were already suspicious this was not the case, the Washington Examiner reported at the time.

By Oct. 2, the New York Times reported Schiffs spokesman Patrick Boland claimed that the California congressman "learned about the outlines" of the whistleblowers complaint prior to the whistleblower submitting it to the ICIG and other officials.

On Oct. 13, Schiff said that he should have been much more clear about the contact his committee had with the whistleblower. I was referring to the fact that when the whistleblower filed the complaint, we had not heard from the whistleblower," he said. "We wanted to bring the whistleblower in at that time, but I should have been much more clear about that.

More recently, on Nov. 13, when pressed by Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, at the impeachment hearings if he knew who the whistleblower was, Schiff claimed to not know the persons identity who met with his staff and filed the complaint against the president with the ICIG.

I do not know the identity of the whistleblower, and Im determined to make sure that identity is protected, Schiff said.

Career CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, 33, who now works for the National Intelligence Council under the director of national intelligence, has been named as the Ukraine whistleblower. The whistleblower's attorneys have refused to confirm or deny this, and Ciaramella himself has not responded to questions from the Washington Examiner.

Republicans in the Senate are expected to try to compel Ciaramella to testify before a Senate trial should Trump be impeached by the House of Representatives. They argue that even if Ciaramella is not the whistleblower, he is a material witness because he was Ukraine director at the White House's National Security Council during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration.

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Ukraine whistleblower insists he discussed nothing of 'substance' with Schiff staff before filing complaint - Washington Examiner

Two weeks ago, Trump, Inc., a podcast from WNYC and ProPublica, reminded listeners to follow the money in the Ukraine scandal. The impeachment inquiry is focused on whether or not there was a quid pro quo: military aid in exchange for an investigation into the Bidens and the 2016 election, host Andrea Bernstein said. Her cohost, Ilya Marritz, chimed in: We are going to look at a lot of the same events from a different vantage point: the business interests at play in the United States and in Ukraine. Over forty minutes, the podcast laid out a convoluted web of intrigue surrounding Trump; his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani; Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman; Trump-allied lawyers (and regular Fox guests) Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova; and Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin and, according to the US Justice Department, Russian organized crime. The characters, Marritz said, are linked by fragments of a story that dont seem to fit togetheruntil they do.

In recent days, the financial angle has returned to the headlines. The New York Times reported yesterday that Giuliani identified Firtashwho is fighting extradition to the US on bribery chargesas a potential pressure point in his campaign to gather dirt on Joe Biden, whose past anticorruption push in Ukraine angered Firtash. In a rare interview, Firtash told the Times that he did retain Toensing and diGenova to help with his US legal woes, but denied having incriminating information about Biden or funding any campaign to get some. Elsewhere, an official with Ukraines state oil-and-gas company told the Wall Street Journal that Parnas and Fruman tried to enlist his help in a proposed takeover. Also according to the Journal, US prosecutors investigating Parnas and Fruman (who have already been indicted on campaign-finance-related charges) have subpoenaed people linked to Giuliani and his consulting firmpart of a broad probe that, the Journal reports, is investigating potential obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements to the federal government, serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the Justice Department, donating funds from foreign nationals, making contributions in the name of another person or allowing someone else to use ones name to make a contribution, along with mail fraud and wire fraud. (Giuliani is not currently under indictment, and has denied wrongdoing.)

ICYMI:Bad Romance

Last night, with public impeachment proceedings at a lull (House investigators are busy compiling their report), these and related stories drove discussion on cable news. On Chris Hayess MSNBC show, Michael Isikoff, a veteran reporter with Yahoo News, raised the prospect that money funneled through Parnas and Fruman may have funded Giulianis legal work for Trump; if true, that raises a whole host of other questions about the financial benefits going to the president himself, Isikoff said. Another guest, CNBCs Christina Wilkie, noted that Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani are people with a lot of avenues for revenue. And we really dont know what was coming from where, and I think that is one of the biggest questions still outstanding.

There is a lot we still dont know about the money flows involving Trumpworld and Ukraine, and what we do know is complicated. Still, the financial angle has felt somewhat underplayed in the impeachment story relative to its interestmore a subplot to the central political drama than a potentially integral part of the story.

Journalists tend to be attracted to stories that involve vast hidden intrigue; as a result, we can sometimes underplay obvious wrongdoingin this case, Trumps public admission that he asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. (As I wrote last month, as journalists, weve been taught to believe that the biggest scandals are those that require intense, meticulous digging; as human beings, weve been taught to believe that no right-minded person would own up to wrongdoing in such a haphazard way.) The murky Parnas/Fruman/Giuliani story offers an avenue for reporters to usefully drive intrigue forward. Yet too much impeachment coverage seems to channel this impulse by demanding ever higher standards of support for already established facts. (At the beginning of this story, Trump asking Ukraine for dirt on Democrats was treated as a central outrage; now it seems, in some quarters, to be secondary to hand-wringing about explicit proof that Trump ordered a quid pro quo on military aid specifically, and other wrinkles.) On Sundays Meet the Press, for example, Chuck Todd offered this exquisite example of false equivalence: It feels like the two sides are talking past each other: Republicans are making a political argument, Democrats are making a legal argument, and theyre going, How do you, the other side, not see what we see?

Yes, impeachment is a political process. But there is a risk of losing perspective on the facts hereof overcomplicating things we already know in order to contrive a sense of mystery that keeps news consumers hooked. That isnt just bad journalism; its also unnecessary. The real, broader story here is plenty mysterious on its merits.

Below, more on the Ukraine scandal:

Other notable stories:

ICYMI:Beyond Facts

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Following the money around Trump and Ukraine - Columbia Journalism Review

A week of impeachment hearings is a lot of information. Five minutes will get you caught up on all things Trump impeachment inquiry. Hannah Gaber, USA TODAY

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is defending his decision to ask the State Department for documents related to the Bidens and Ukraine, after former Vice President Joe Biden said he was "embarrassed" bythe senator's movelast week.

Speaking on Fox News Radio on Monday, Graham pushed back against the 2020 Democrat, saying that the issue has "nothing to do with friendship" between the two politicians. Biden had said that he was "angered" because Graham "knows me, he knows my son."

"My friendship with Joe Biden, if he can't withstand me doing my job, it'snot the friendship I thought we had," Graham said.

Graham sent a letter to the State Department last week requesting records of Biden's interactions with Ukrainian officials. House Democrats are pursuing an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trumpfor an alleged pressure campaign to get the Ukrainian president to openinvestigations that would benefit him politically.

Meanwhile,President Donald Trump and his political allies have pushed the allegation, without evidence, that Biden called for the firing of a topUkrainianprosecutor to protect his son, who once sat on the board ofenergy company Burisma in Ukraine.

Biden pushed for the prosecutor's ouster for failing to pursue corruption cases, the consensus among international groups at the time, according to officials.

A Biden spokesperson said in a statement, "Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress for most of the last five years and said or did nothing to indicate they thought that this warranted attention."

Explainer: Biden, allies pushed out Ukrainian prosecutor because he didn't pursue corruption cases

Of the accusations against Trump, Graham said, "I don't see that. I don't see that being proven." Graham said that he would not give Democrats "a pass," while they continue to investigate Trump, and accused House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of conducting an "un-American" impeachment process.

"I'm not going to create a country where only Republicans get investigated," Graham said. "... And we're going to ask questions of Hunter Biden's role, and getting the prosecutor fired."

In response to Biden's accusation that Trump has power over him, Graham said, "I'm doing this because somebody needs to do it."

"Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he's going to regret his whole life," Biden said."I say, Lindsey, I'm just embarrassed by what you're doing, for you."

"Don't feel bad about me. Don't worry about me. I am fine, Joe. You're a good man," Graham said Monday.

'I'm embarrassed by what you're doing': Joe Biden says Lindsey Graham will regret backing Trump amid Ukraine controversy

Graham said that he hopes his friendship with Biden will continue, but that somebody needs to look into the questions about Hunter Biden.

"I admire him as a person, I think he's always trying to do right by the country. I think he's made a lot of bad policy choices, but as a person, I like him," Graham said. "But we're not going to allow a system in America where only one side gets looked at. These are legitimate questions."

U.S. and Ukraine relations go further back than the now infamous phone call between Trump and Zelensky. We explain their relationship. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/25/lindsey-graham-defends-choice-pursue-joe-biden-ukraine-questions/4300384002/

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Graham: Joe Biden's role in Ukraine has 'nothing to do with friendship' - USA TODAY

When the manager of a car dealership, a Ukrainian immigrant, asked a 37-year-old man to clean up his trash, the man spit in the managers face, told him to go back to his own country and threatened to cut him with a box cutter.

Now that man, Harold Eugene Denson III, of Portland, Ore., will have to reflect on what his actions might have meant to the manager if he wants to avoid more punishment, that is.

As part of Mr. Densons sentence after pleading no contest to a bias crime and unlawful use of a weapon, Judge Christopher A. Ramras of Multnomah County Circuit Court ordered on Friday that he write a 500-word essay on the hardships of immigration.

Im not asking you to focus on any one particular country, Judge Ramras told Mr. Denson during the sentencing. What I am asking you to do is to put yourself into their shoes and position and write a report that explains some of the challenges of what it might be like for them coming to this country.

There are about 50,000 immigrants from the part of the world where the manager comes from living in the Portland metropolitan area, Judge Ramras noted during the hearing.

Mr. Denson, who has been homeless for a year, according to his lawyer, Autumn Shreve, has until March to submit the essay. If the court accepts it, he can withdraw his plea and the bias crime charge will be dropped. If not, Mr. Denson will be convicted and could face more penalties, according to a news release from the Multnomah County District Attorneys Office.

Mr. Denson pleaded no contest to the bias crime charge and to one count of unlawful use of a weapon on Friday. Mr. Denson, who has been in jail since August, was sentenced on the weapon charge to the 90 days he had already served. He was released on Monday, according to Ms. Shreve.

More than a week before the sentencing, Judge Ramras first met with Mr. Denson and Ms. Shreve to suggest the essay idea, Ms. Shreve said in an interview on Monday. When Mr. Denson agreed, Ms. Shreve formally proposed it to the state, she added. I think its more effective than just jail or straight probation, Ms. Shreve said. Mr. Denson is very willing and happy to do it, she added.

On Aug. 25, Mr. Denson was collecting cans on the property of a car dealership, according to his lawyer.

Prosecutors say he threw trash all over the property. The dealerships manager, an immigrant from Ukraine, approached Mr. Denson, gave him a trash bag and asked him to clean up the area, they said.

Mr. Denson thanked the manager before he suddenly became agitated and yelled that the car dealership was American soil and not the managers property, according to prosecutors. He then spit in the managers face, told him to go back to his own country and threatened to cut him with a box cutter, they said.

Ms. Shreve said that Mr. Denson had been collecting cans to redeem for 10 cents each when his bag broke. He had already started picking up the fallen cans when the manager approached, she added.

When the police responded, they found the box cutter in Mr. Densons pocket before arresting him.

Though this is the first time a client of hers will write an essay, Ms. Shreve said it was not entirely out of the ordinary for a sentence to include a letter of apology, paying victims or completing volunteer work.

Mr. Denson needs to understand the impact his actions had on the victim and our immigrant communities, Nicole Hermann, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney, said in the offices news release. This is an opportunity for him to reconcile his behavior through compassion, learning and understanding.

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He Spat on a Man From Ukraine. Now He Has to Write About the Immigrant Experience. - The New York Times