President Donald Trump denied any knowledge on Thursday of businessman Lev Parnas, who accused the president of using him to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

“I don’t know Parnas other than I guess I had pictures taken – which I do with thousands of people, including people today,” Trump said when asked about Parnas by reporters at the White House on Thursday.

Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview on Wednesday that he acted at Trump’s direction to pressure Ukrainian officials.

“Doesn’t matter what he says,” Trump said. “He’s trying to probably to make a deal for himself. I don’t even know who this man is.”

Parnas, a Ukranian-born businessman, was arrested in October for schemes to funnel foreign money to American political campaigns.

Parnes turned over documents and text messages to Congress for the impeachment trial and appears willing to testify during the Senate trial.

He was also photographed with the president during a fundraiser.

Trump said that as president of the United States, he had taken thousands of pictures with people at fundraisers and around the country and repeated that he knew nothing about Parnas.

“I don’t know him at all, don’t know what he’s about, don’t know where he comes from, know nothing about him,” he said.

Trump repeated that the Democrat impeachment process continued to be a “big hoax.”

“You just have to take a look at the polls, you see I don’t need anybody’s help,” he said. “I don’t need the help of a man that I never met before.”