Giuliani thinks Miami people are ‘perfectly legitimate’ — including his Ukrainian cohorts
Rudy Giuliani thinks Miami people are “perfectly legitimate.”
That includes his two federally indicted Ukrainian associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
In a Bloody-Mary-soaked interview with New York Magazine, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer defended the behavior of the two South Florida businessmen of Ukrainian heritage accused of funneling illicit foreign money into state and federal political campaigns.
“They look like Miami people,” Giuliani told national correspondent Olivia Nuzzi. “I know a lot of Miami people that look like that that are perfectly legitimate and act like them.”
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It’s unclear exactly what the former mayor of New York meant to say about the two men who ran a business called Fraud Guarantee and whom federal agents arrested on Oct. 9 at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, each carrying one-way tickets to leave the country.
Guiliani told New York magazine that even allegations of wrongdoing should not dissuade presumably aspiring businesspeople from trusting people — especially if they look like they’re from Miami.
“Neither one of them have ever been convicted of a crime. Neither one. And generally, that’s my cutoff point, because if you do it based on allegations and claims and — you’re not gonna work with anybody,” he told Nuzzi, reportedly laughing. “Particularly in business.”
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Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican, announced in October he would return $50,000 that his campaign received from Parnas and Fruman from an energy firm called Global Energy Producers. Last month, a spokeswoman for DeSantis confirmed he met Parnas on May 9, 2018, after speaking at a gathering for the Zionist Organization of America.
Florida’s governor met indicted businessman at a Zionist Organization of America event
Parnas later went on to co-host a fundraiser during DeSantis’ campaign and make an appearance at his inauguration as a “very, very important person.”
Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott said his campaign would also return two separate contributions from Fruman that amounted to $20,400, and would donate them to Shriners Hospital for Children.
Meanwhile, Giuliani came under attack for saying in the interview that liberal mega-donor George Soros is “hardly a Jew,” and that he was “more of a Jew” than the billionaire donor, a Holocaust survivor.
The Anti-Defamation League asked Giuliani to issue an apology, charging that his words act as a “dog-whistle” for anti-Semitic sentiment.
