Giuliani pals leveraged GOP access to seek Ukraine gas deal

KYIV, Ukraine — Two men with close ties to Rudy Giuliani leveraged their political connections to pursue a deal to export natural gas from the U.S. to Ukraine intended to benefit Republican donors and friends of President Donald Trump’s family. Favorov, in a series of interviews with The Associated Press in Kyiv, described his dealings with Giuliani’s associates, Soviet-born Florida businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The effort ran parallel to their work in Kyiv with Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, to push Yovanovitch aside and convince Ukraine’s leaders to investigate Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter’s business ties to another Ukrainian energy company called Burisma. Kise, Sargeant’s lawyer, described it as a “social lunch.” The following day, Favorov and Kobolyev went to the Trump International Hotel where Parnas and Fruman introduced them to Jeff Miller, a former political adviser to former Texas governor and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and now vice finance chair for the 2020 Republican National Convention, and Tommy Hicks Jr., a private equity investor who is co-chairman of the Republican National Committee and a friend of Donald Trump Jr. Three people with direct knowledge of the meeting described it to AP on condition of anonymity.