Ukraine scandal

Solomon is one of the most critical figures in Trump and Giuliani’s plot to extort the Ukrainian government into meddling in our 2020 election to help the president.

Trump hired Giuliani in late 2018 for his legal team responding to the special counsel Robert Mueller’ investigation into Russian electoral interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Purportedly as part of this effort, Giuliani worked closely with a team of players to create a two-pronged conspiracy theory that both smeared former Vice President Joe Biden as well as discredit the Mueller report by showing that it was really Ukraine that interfered with our 2016 election.

Giuliani’s team included Solomon, two now-indicted con men Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and the pro-Trump legal duo (and Fox News fixtures) Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. They worked together to secure interviews with discredited and disgraced former Ukranian prosecutors and government officials to weave a complex conspiracy theory alleging that corrupt Ukrainian officials colluded with equally corrupt American officials to frame Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort in order to discredit Trump and benefit his 2016 political opponent Hillary Clinton. (Manafort is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence due to his work in Ukraine.) At the same time, according to their theory, the Ukranian government was also aiding Biden in supposedly getting investigations into the Burisma gas company shut down because his son Hunter served on the board. Through this disinformation campaign, they targeted the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch whose anti-corruption initiatives in Ukraine put her in the crosshairs of the very Ukranian officials Giuliani needed to concoct this conspiracy theory.

Solomon’s columns at The Hill was the primary vehicle through which they injected this narrative into the public. Giuliani has stated that he “turned my stuff over to John Solomon,” but as more information about their work comes to light, Solomon’s involvement appears more direct. Instant messages recently released by the House Intelligence Committee show Parnas working as an intermediary between Solomon and at least two of the corrupt Ukranian prosecutors used to support this conspiracy, Yuri Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin. Giuliani appears to have made a deal with Lutsenko: If Lutsenko gives them dirt on Biden, he’ll get Yovanovitch fired.

At the same time, the messages show Parnas serving as an intermediary for Solomon to interview Lutsenko, even appearing to send him advanced copies of Solomon’s columns prior to publication. ProPublica reported that Parnas even was in the control room when Solomon interviewed Lutsenko for The HillTV. Solomon’s resulting columns set the stage to make public a behind-the-scenes smear campaign targeting Yovanovitch and Biden. Parnas played a similar role in facilitating interviews between Solomon and Viktor Shokin, the disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired in 2016 as a result of pressure by the United States and the international community.

Another key player in this scheme is Firtash, a Ukranian pro-Russian oligarch and former business associate of Paul Manafort who is in Austria fighting extradition to the United States to face charges related to a bribery conspiracy. In the summer of 2019, Firtash fired his legal team to hire diGenova and Toensing, who were working closely with Parnas, Giuliani, and Solomon. (As it turns out, diGenova and Toensing also represented Solomon.) Parnas has recently claimed that Firtash agreed to work with Giuliani and his cronies to help them discredit the Mueller investigation in exchange for getting his extradition case dropped. Parnas alleged that Solomon played a key role in helping him connect with Firtash, saying “Basically I was given certain documents by John Solomon that would validate to Dimitri Firtash that I was in the loop and that I knew what was going on, because Mr. Firstash is a gentleman that just doesn't see anybody.”

All told in 2019, Solomon published dozens of columns in The Hill aimed at discrediting the Russia investigation and planting the seeds of this new Ukrainian element of the conspiracy theory. Solomon brought the conspiracy theory to Fox News and Fox Business, where he has appeared at least 92 times since March 20 through the end of 2019 to push elements of the conspiracy theory, in some cases alongside his attorneys diGenova and Toensing. None of the three ever disclosed their relationship to each other. Hannity gushed over Solomon’s work, hosting him at least 65 times during this same time period. Solomon’s efforts paid off when Fox News announced in October 2019 that it was hiring him as a contributor; he had recently announced he was leaving The Hill.

Solomon’s work also became a critical part of Trump’s impeachment inquiry. Multiple witnesses testified that his reporting was inaccurate but nonetheless led to Yovanovitch’s removal.