What happened today

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman , two associates of Rudy Giuliani , were indicted on campaign finance charges. They were part of the pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate President Trump ’s political rivals, including Joe Biden .

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman “conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office,” including by making donations to a pro-Trump super PAC. Read the indictment.

The indictment refers to a “Congressman-1” — identified in campaign finance filings as former Representative Pete Sessions , Republican of Texas — who was the beneficiary of approximately $3 million that the super PAC spent during the 2018 cycle. The men sought Mr. Sessions’s assistance in removing the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, “at least in part at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials,” according to the indictment. (The men were also seeking political assistance setting up a legal marijuana business in Nevada.)

Shortly after the indictment became public, House impeachment investigators issued subpoenas to Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, compelling them to speak with Congress about their work with Mr. Giuliani in Ukraine.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry was subpoenaed for records that could shed light on any role he may have played in Mr. Trump’s attempts to pressure the Ukrainian government. Investigators also want to know whether Mr. Perry tried to influence the management of Ukraine’s state-owned gas company.

A dramatic airport arrest

Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for us, said federal prosecutors probably had the indictment ready to go for a while and were keeping tabs on Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. When the two got one-way tickets out of the country, she said, the prosecutors realized that they had to move.

My colleague Mike Schmidt got an eyewitness account of the arrests in the Lufthansa lounge in the B concourse of Dulles International Airport on Wednesday. Here’s what he heard:

They were indulging themselves in the free drinks and food while talking on the phone and waiting for their overnight flight to Frankfurt. Around 5:45 p.m., the men and the other first class travelers were invited to board before all the other passengers. As they made their way down a corridor toward their plane, two plainclothes officers stepped out and stopped them. “We need to see your passports,” one of the officers said. The passengers took them out, and the officers determined who was standing in front of them. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman were told to turn around. As they made their way back into the terminal, they were greeted by a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes officers who arrested them.

What were Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman up to?

At first glance, the two men might seem peripheral to the events that the House is investigating. But they were involved in the Ukraine affair from the beginning, dating to Mr. Parnas’s job as Mr. Giuliani’s fixer in Ukraine.

This evening I stopped by the desk of my colleague Ken Vogel, who revealed Mr. Parnas’s involvement in Mr. Giuliani’s Ukraine efforts, to get a sense of why they matter to the impeachment investigation.