NEW YORK — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman pleaded not guilty to four counts of campaign finance violations in a federal court in New York City Wednesday. The two men are longtime associates of Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer working for President Donald Trump, and were key players in his campaign to oust the former US ambassador to Ukraine and dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden.

Parnas and Fruman — along with two other men, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, who pleaded not guilty in the same courtroom last week — are accused of violating federal campaign finance laws prohibiting foreign nationals from donating to US political campaigns.

Parnas and Fruman made their first appearance in US District Court for the Southern District of New York Wednesday morning, for an arraignment in which they announced their pleas and the lawyers agreed on the next meeting with the judge.

Parnas came to court with his wife by his side. The men have been blocked from talking to each other outside of court as part of their bail agreement, they greeted each other but otherwise kept their interaction minimal.

Parnas and Fruman were charged with four counts, while Correia and Kukushkin were only charged with one related to an attempt by all four men to influence the campaign of a local Nevada politician with money sourced secretly from a Russian businessperson, in order to help their aspiring recreational marijuana business.

The additional three counts for Parnas and Fruman involve laundering foreign money into US campaigns, entering “secret agreements” in order to hide the campaign finance scheme from federal regulators and the candidates they were donating to, setting up “straw donors” to hide the funds from the Federal Election Commission, and committing “conspiracy” to “knowingly defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of a department or agency of the United States.”

Parnas and Fruman were arrested together at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, DC, on Oct. 9. Both men had one-way tickets to Vienna, Austria, but were apprehended before boarding the plane and taken to jail in Alexandria, Virginia, where their bail was set at a $1 million bond each. They both met the bail requirements and are currently being kept in home detention with GPS monitoring. Under the conditions of the bail package, they are only allowed to travel to the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Florida, and only with the court’s permission. As part of Parnas's bail, he is allowed to travel to the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of Columbia, also with permission from the court.

Separately, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena that resulted in financial records on Parnas and Fruman being turned over to investigators, BuzzFeed News reported Tuesday.

In court, after Parnas and Fruman both pleaded not guilty to the charges, the prosecution announced that they would be conducting “voluminous” amounts of discovery in the case before the next hearing. US attorney Rebekah Donaleski told US District Court Judge Paul Oetken that they are filing more than a dozen search warrants for information concerning Parnas and Fruman, including physical files, electronic devices, emails, social media accounts, more than 50 bank accounts, and more than a dozen financial statements. The investigation into what they will need is ongoing, Donaleski told the court, and they will present all of their findings to Parnas and Fruman’s legal team on a rolling basis.

In response to this, Parnas’s attorney, Edward MacMahon, told the court that he was concerned that some of the information that the prosecution will uncover in discovery would violate attorney–client privilege between Giuliani and Parnas, as well as, potentially, executive privilege.

In response to this, Judge Oetken seemed confused and asked if MacMahon was saying that Parnas worked for Trump. MacMahon responded that Parnas worked for Giuliani, who worked for Trump.

“Mr. Parnas was using Giuliani as his lawyer,” MacMahon told the court, “and Giuliani was also acting as attorney for President Trump.”

“I can’t invoke executive privilege, only the president can invoke that,” MacMahon continued, but as executive privilege is “sensitive" and “complicated,” MacMahon said, he wanted to make sure it was something the court and the prosecution were aware of.

When asked outside the courtroom whether Giuliani worked for Parnas or vice versa, MacMahon told BuzzFeed News, “They worked for each other.”



Outside of the courthouse, Parnas gave a brief statement to the press with his wife and lawyers standing behind him.

“Many false things have been said about me and my family in the press and media recently, I look forward to defending myself vigorously in court and I’m certain that in time, truth will be revealed and I will be vindicated,” Parnas said. “In the end, I put my faith in God. Thank you.”

Fruman, meanwhile, left from the courthouse’s side exit, avoiding reporters.

Parnas and Fruman’s next court date is Dec. 2 and will focus on discussing the discovery findings and set a trial date. That’s the same day as Correia and Kukushkin’s next hearing.

