Devin Nunes aide texted repeatedly with Giuliani ally investigating Joe Biden, documents show

An aide to Rep. Devin Nunes exchanged dozens of text messages with indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas about a search for information on former Vice President Joe Biden from Ukrainian prosecutors, according to documents House Democrats released Friday evening.

The exchanges include repeated references by Nunes aide Derek Harvey and Parnas to Biden. Parnas allegedly helped carry out President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure the Ukrainian government for investigations that would benefit Trump’s re-election.

The release adds to questions about the role Nunes played in efforts central to the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

Nunes, who represents Tulare, went on to serve as Trump’s chief defender against impeachment as the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee.

They also back up claims Parnas made during a recent MSNBC interview, when he said he coordinated meetings for Harvey and that Nunes was involved in the efforts to find dirt on Biden.

The messages released Friday span from February through May 2019. They show Harvey and Parnas planned several in-person meetings, including at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. They also detail plans for Parnas to connect Harvey with Ukrainian prosecutors.

Nunes was first connected to Parnas six weeks ago, when a Democratic investigation published phone records showing calls between Nunes spoke with Parnas and with Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney. Nunes initially said he did not recall the conversation with Parnas.

On Wednesday, Nunes publicly acknowledged for the first time that he spoke with Parnas. He told Fox News that he remembered a call.

“It was very odd, random, talked about random things. I said great, just talk to my staff, boom boom boom, which is normal, standard operating procedure.”

The phone records showed Nunes had at least three calls with Giuliani and two with Parnas. Giuliani also called Harvey on May 8, as well as a former Nunes staffer, Kashyap “Kash” Patel, who now works on the National Security Council.

The latest records also contain several references to Parnas and Harvey’s work with John Solomon, who wrote conservative columns for The Hill newspaper. At one point, Harvey says “Solomon needs to get me the material” and asks Parnas to help set up an interview between Harvey and “your four people,” an apparent reference to the Ukrainian prosecutors.

“This is the general prosecutor that got fired by Biden,” Parnas wrote to Harvey in March after sending a link to a web page titled “Viktor Shokin,” a former Ukrainian prosecutor.

The next month, Parnas asked about setting up interviews with prosecutors.

“Do you want to interview the general prosecutor who got dieted (sic) by Biden ? Also the anti corruption prosecutor ? Let me know,” he wrote.

On May 7, Parnas asked Harvey to meet him, Giuliani and Solomon at the Trump hotel.

“We are at trump with Rudy and John Salomon (sic) ... in private room,” He wrote. “Can you come now.”

Harvey said “yes.”

Harvey and Parnas also messaged about rumors that Hillary Clinton tried to find damaging information about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in Ukraine.

In the Fox News interview this week, Nunes raised questions about Parnas’ credibility.

“This is someone who’s been indicted for major felonies. It’s very odd that the Democrats have been playing cat and mouse with this guy. There’s some talk that he’s after an immunity deal, trying to get the Democrats to seek immunity,” Nunes said.

This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 7:55 PM.