A firm run by Andy Surabian, who has worked with Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr., says Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the business partners at the center of the impeachment inquiry, still haven’t paid for work done last year.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images Lev Parnas (left) and Igor Fruman.

WASHINGTON — During their rise last year as major donors to the Republican party, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman faced their first crisis. The Soviet-born business partners had just made one of the largest contributions to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC, but a national news outlet and a watchdog group were now raising troubling questions about the source of the money. With their backchannel campaign in Ukraine about to begin, Parnas and Fruman turned to the former director of Donald Trump's campaign war room to fight the allegations that threatened to derail their rapid ascent within Republican circles. Their ability to quickly hire Belmont Strategies — a public relations firm run by former White House adviser Andy Surabian, an influential Republican operator who has advised both Donald Trump Jr. and Steve Bannon — demonstrates just how deeply connected they were to the upper echelon of the GOP as they challenged accusations that their donation was illegal. They paid $25,000 to the firm last year to mount a defense, after meeting with top Republican lawmakers and pouring money into their campaigns. Their arrests at a Washington-area airport last month on federal campaign violations signaled the end of that rise — one marked by chauffeured rides and charges to an exclusive Republican club in Washington. The partners’ financial activity is now under scrutiny by federal investigators, who have requested reams of records to trace the origins of the money that flowed into their accounts while Parnas and Fruman waged a shadow campaign with Rudy Giuliani to help President Donald Trump. A lawyer for Fruman declined to comment. Parnas’s attorney did not respond to interview requests. Their downfall has left the influential Republicans they courted reckoning with the consequences. A former member of Congress from Texas has been subpoenaed by the grand jury in New York. America First Action, the super PAC that received $325,000 from the men, wants to get rid of the money. A high-powered lobbying firm in Trump’s Washington has had to explain why it paid Parnas $45,000 last year. Now Surabian’s communications firm, Belmont Strategies, is among them. For his efforts, Surabian is still owed thousands of dollars for some of the work provided by his firm to act as spokespeople for Parnas and Fruman. “We were contracted on two separate occasions — once in July of 2018 and again in December of 2018 — to respond to press inquiries,” a spokesperson for Belmont Strategies said. “We ultimately ceased doing any further work for them after they failed to remit payment for the services we had provided in December of 2018.”

The problems for Parnas and Fruman began just two months after they turned over the money to America First Action in May 2018. The Daily Beast published a story in July that questioned the source of the $325,000 contribution to the super PAC. That same day, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with federal elections officials, claiming the money was funneled through a company to conceal the true origin of the funds. Almost immediately, the super PAC's leaders appeared to rally around Parnas and Fruman. Brian Walsh, the president of the group, fired off an email to its board members. “You likely have met Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman at one of our events or an RNC event (I believe they also contributed to [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis, [then-representative Pete] Sessions and others),” Walsh wrote in emails obtained by BuzzFeed News. “Of note, they are both US Citizens and have been for years,” he said. America First Action had “been in contact” with the duo, who were “not pleased” with the “flawed” claims against them. One of those board members, Tommy Hicks Jr., was no stranger to Parnas and Fruman. He had previously joined the men for a breakfast along with Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Courtesy Parnas From left: Donald Trump Jr., Tommy Hicks Jr., Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman.