'I remember that call': Devin Nunes recalls 'odd' chat with indicted Giuliani associate Parnas

William Cummings | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Giuliani associate Lev Parnas claims Trump knew about Ukraine Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas said President Trump "knew exactly what was going on" in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Devin Nunes told Fox News that he does recall an April phone conversation with Lev Parnas, an associate of President Donald Trump's personal attorney, after initially saying he did not remember the call when his phone records surfaced last month.

Parnas claims Nunes, Trump and other top Republicans had direct knowledge of the alleged pressure campaign in Ukraine that led to Trump's impeachment. His calls with Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, were first made public in early December when the committee released its impeachment report.

The report included phone records that showed calls and texts between Nunes and Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani on April 10, followed by an exchange with Parnas on April 12.

"I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things," Nunes told Fox on Wednesday. "And I said, 'Great, you know, just talk to my staff,' and boom, boom, boom. Which is normal, standard operating procedure."

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Nunes previously did not recall those details. When the phone record first surfaced, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity he didn't remember the call but said he would look into it. In another Fox News interview on Dec. 8, he said that after checking his phone records he recalled getting a call from someone he didn't know and referring him to his staff.

"I just didn't know the name. This name Parnas," Nunes said Wednesday.

"So, what I always like to remind people is we are dealing with people every day. We're an oversight committee, so we have incoming calls that come to my office, to my cell phone etcetera, etcetera."

The House has transmitted two articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate for a trial that Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to begin next week. The charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stem from allegations that Trump used military aid to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations that he thought would benefit him politically.

Parnas, who claims he relayed messages to Ukraine's current president and his predecessor demanding the investigations, told MSNBC on Wednesday that Nunes had direct knowledge of the alleged effort to push Ukraine into announcing investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2016 election.

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"This is someone who's been indicted for major felonies," Nunes said of Parnas, who is facing federal campaign finance charges. . "It's very odd that the Democrats have been playing cat and mouse with this guy. There's some talk that he's after an immunity deal."

Nunes filed a $435,350,000 lawsuit against CNN last month for a story in which Parnas claimed that Nunes met last year in Vienna with a former Ukrainian prosecutor offering dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. Nunes produced travel records that show he was in Libya and Malta at the time of his alleged Vienna meeting.

"This person accused me of being in Vienna," Nunes said Wednesday. "This is someone who doesn't tell the truth. That's something that didn't happen."

Nunes said after looking at Parnas' notes and phone records, "it doesn't seem like there's anything of any relevance in there."

But many of Trump's future Democratic jurors in the Senate thought Parnas and his supporting evidence are critical to the trial.

"Last night’s Lev Parnas interview couldn’t have made it more clear – the Senate must hear from first-hand witnesses and demand the White House turn over documents related to the withholding of military aid from Ukraine," Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said in tweet.

And Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., disputed the attacks on Parnas' credibility.

"The argument that Parnas can’t be trusted because he has committed crimes is priceless," Murphy said. "This is how criminal conspiracies work. Everybody is committing crimes and eventually the guys implementing the crime turn in the guys who ordered and oversaw it."

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