Donald Trump allies and business associates of Rudy Giuliani tried to force Ukraine's state-run gas company to give lucrative contracts to the president’s supporters, according to these reports. Just as Giuliani was pressuring the country to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, a group of individuals with ties to POTUS and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Soviet-born Florida real estate entrepreneurs, and an oil magnate from Boca Raton, Florida, named Harry Sargeant III are said to have touted connections to both men while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.
But their scheme hit a snag when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.
The effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine's new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry's past political donors.
Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers Friday that it had been Perry who had prompted the phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for a 'favor' regarding Biden. Axios cited a source saying the president claimed Perry had asked him to make the call to discuss 'something about an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant'.
But the Trump and Giuliani allies driving the attempt to change the senior management at Naftogazt, however, appear to have had inside knowledge of the U.S. government's plans in Ukraine. For example, they told people that Trump would replace the U.S. ambassador there months before she was actually recalled to Washington, according to three of the individuals interviewed by the Associated Press. One of the individuals said he was so concerned by the whole affair that he reported it to a U.S. Embassy official in Ukraine months ago.
The Naftogaz supervisory board is supposed to be selected by the Ukrainian president's Cabinet in consultation with international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the United States and the European Union. It must be approved by the Ukrainian Cabinet. Ukrainian officials perceived Perry's push to swap out the board as circumventing that established process.
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