One of President Trump’s personal attorneys said Thursday that neither Trump nor his reelection campaign were aware of the campaign finance allegations against two associates of Rudy Giuliani, another of his attorneys.
“As the indictment states, neither the President nor the campaign were aware,” Jay Sekulow said in a statement to NBC News.
{mosads}The indictment does not conclusively state Trump or his campaign were unaware of the scheme, but does not name them either.
The two men, Florida businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested Wednesday night attempting to fly out of Dulles International Airport with one-way international tickets.
Federal prosecutors said the two men illegally donated $325,000 to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC, through a shell company, Global Energy Producers.
The indictment stated that the contributions “were made for the purpose of gaining influence with politicians so as to advance their own personal financial interests and the political interests of Ukrainian government officials, including at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working.”
Giuliani, who reportedly had lunch with the men before their arrest, told NBC he could not yet comment. The two reportedly introduced him to several current and former Ukrainian officials as part of his attempt to find damaging information about former Vice President Joe Biden, although the allegations in the indictment do not appear to related to his work in the country.
America First Action, meanwhile, told NBC that it had “placed that contribution in a segregated bank account, it has not been used for any purpose and the funds will remain in this segregated account until these matters are resolved.”
“We take our legal obligations seriously and scrupulously comply with the law and any suggestion otherwise is false,” a spokesperson for the super PAC added.