Nunes aide communicated with Parnas about Ukraine campaign, messages show

WASHINGTON — House Democrats released new documents Friday evening showing extensive contact between an associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and an aide to the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee regarding the effort to obtain material from Ukrainian prosecutors that would be damaging to former vice president Joe Biden.

The text messages between Lev Parnas, who functioned as Rudy Giuliani’s emissary to Ukrainian officials, and Derek Harvey, an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, indicate Nunes’ office was aware of the operation at the heart of impeachment proceedings against the president — and sought to use the information Parnas was gathering.

The newly released texts show that Parnas was working last spring to set up calls for Harvey with the Ukrainian prosecutors who were feeding Giuliani information about Biden.

"Also do you want to interview the general prosecutor who got [ditched] by Biden ? Also the anti corruption prosecutor ? Let me know," Parnas wrote on April 19.

"Does tomorrow work?" Harvey responded.

The messages also show that Harvey met with Parnas and Giuliani at the Trump hotel in Washington.

Harvey and a spokesman for Nunes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The text messages corroborate Parnas’ previous claims that he arranged conversations with the Ukrainian prosecutors for the Nunes aide. And they deepen questions about how much Nunes knew about the pressure campaign — even as he served as one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders during the House impeachment hearings.

"I was in shock when I was watching the hearings and when I saw Devin Nunes sitting up there," Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow this week. "I texted my attorney. I said, 'I can't believe this is happening.' "

Records that the House Democrats released in December first showed calls between Parnas and Nunes. At the time, Nunes said he couldn't remember speaking with Parnas.

On Thursday, Nunes told Fox News that he had reviewed his records, which refreshed his memory of having one conversation.

“(I) checked it with my records and it was very clear — I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things, and I said, ‘great,’ you know, ‘talk to my staff,’ and boom, boom, boom. That’s just normal operating procedure,” Nunes said.

However, the documents released Friday show extensive interactions between Parnas and Nunes’s aide — and that Harvey in April sent Parnas contact information for the congressman.

The messages show that Parnas and Harvey exchanged numerous communications beginning in February and set up several in person meetings, including with key individuals around Giuliani that were most involved in the Biden effort.

"We are at trump with Rudy and John Solomon and joe in private room," Parnas wrote the Nunes aide on May 7, apparently inviting him to the Trump International Hotel to meet with Giuliani, as well as Solomon, a conservative columnist, Joe DiGenova, a lawyer working with Giuliani.

"Can you come now," Parnas continued.

"Yes," Harvey responded.

The texts also indicate that Parnas passed a copy of one of the Ukrainian prosecutor's resumes in English to Harvey. Parnas also seemed to have sent him a copy of the Ukrainian passport of the tycoon who owns the gas company that placed Biden's son Hunter on its board. How the copy of the passport was obtained, and what Harvey was planning to do with it, if anything, is unclear.

Parnas, who is facing federal campaign charges and has recently broken with Giuliani and turned against the president, told MSNBC this week that Nunes and Harvey "were involved in getting all this stuff on Biden."

“Derek Harvey had several interviews, Skype interviews I set up, with different prosecutors like (Nazar) Kholodnytsky, which is the anti-corruption prosecutor of Ukraine (and) Konstantyn Kulyk, one of the major guys that’s had this whole Biden stuff,” Parnas said.

Parnas suggested to MSNBC he was told to communicate with Harvey instead of Nunes directly because "Devin Nunes had an ethics, something to do with an ethics committee, and he couldn't be in a spotlight."

The materials released Friday also include screenshots that Robert Hyde, a former Marine and candidate for Congress in Connecticut, sent to Parnas discussing surveillance of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

The screenshots appear to show Hyde having a text message exchange with an unknown person with a Belgian mobile number regarding Yovanovitch's movements in Ukraine, as he updates Parnas about the situation. Whether the person with the Belgian number was actually monitoring Yovanovitch is unclear.

Hyde, in an interview Wednesday with Eric Bolling on the Sinclair Broadcasting show "America This Week," denied ordering private surveillance on Yovanovitch and said his messages were sent to Parnas in jest and were selectively released.

"It was just colorful. We were playing. I thought we were playing," Hyde said, adding it was "unfortunate the left had to get their panties in a bunch."

Asked if he had "eyes on" Yovanovitch, Hyde said: "Are you kidding me?"

Parnas said on MSNBC he didn't believe Hyde was actually carrying out surveillance on Yovanovitch.

"I don't believe it's true," Parnas said. "I think he was either drunk or he was trying to make himself bigger than he was, so I didn't take it seriously"

The new materials also offered further indication of how Giuliani sent messages to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky through Parnas. In one message released late Friday, Giuliani appears to ask Parnas to tell Zelensky through the Ukrainian prosecutor general that he needs to break with a Ukrainian oligarch who is associated with him and take more of the tycoon's assets for the state.

“Show him my tweets and tell him to tell President-elect to stop acting like a boy and become a man and take control,” Giuliani told Parnas. “Arrest this bum and take more of his money back.”

Parnas responded with three thumbs-up emoticons.

Ukrainian authorities announced this week the opening of an investigation into the possibility that the U.S. ambassador was under surveillance or being stalked by associates of Parnas and Giuliani. Yovanovitch was removed from her post last spring after Giuliani urged Trump to fire her and helped fuel a public pressure campaign against her in conservative media outlets.

According to text messages the House Democrats released, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko had demanded her ouster in exchange for helping with the Biden effort.

The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.