© SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images US Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a "Keep America Great" campaign rally at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio, on January 9, 2020.

Joseph Bondy, the attorney for Lev Parnas, shared on Twitter a video showing his client at an event with Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence.

The vice president has denied knowing Parnas after the Ukrainian American businessman accused him of working on an alleged scheme to pressure Ukraine's government. "I don't know the guy," Pence said last week, CNN reported, calling Parnas's claims "completely false."

In the video clip, Parnas is seen holding the hand of Karen Pence and talking with her as the vice president stands by her side, speaking to someone else. Towards the end of the 23-second video, Parnas is seen reaching towards Mike Pence, waiting to shake his hand.

Over the footage plays the opening lines of "September" by Earth, Wind and Fire: "Do you remember the 21st night of September? Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away."

"Mike Pence does indeed know the guy," Bondy tweeted with the video, but gave no details of the context in which the vice president, his wife, and Parnas are together. Newsweek has asked Bondy for comment and further information about the video.

Bondy also shared a quote from the U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland. "Everyone was in the loop," Sondland said in his testimony about the alleged Ukraine scheme to the House impeachment inquiry.

Newsweek has asked the White House for comment.

Parnas is a business associate of Rudy Giuliani, a personal lawyer and fixer for President Donald Trump. Parnas and another Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman, were indicted in October over alleged foreign donor schemes.

Following his indictment and amid the impeachment saga, Parnas has spoken publicly about his involvement in the alleged Ukraine scheme, releasing new documents and making various claims about the activity of key figures in and around the Trump White House, including the president.

Of Pence, Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow the vice president was personally involved in the effort to pressure Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into announcing the opening of a corruption investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

"These allegations are being made by a man who is currently out on bail for federal crimes and is desperate to reduce his exposure to prison," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told Newsweek in a statement last week.

"The facts haven't changed — the president did nothing wrong and this impeachment, which was manufactured and carried out by the Democrats, has been a sham from the start."



Related Articles

Sign up to our newsletter and get Newsweek stories delivered to your e-mail