Revelations this week by Rudy Giuliani's henchman Lev Parnas in interviews with MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times blew Iran out of the headlines and landed on Capitol Hill like a bomb. Here was an insider in the Ukraine conspiracy not only willing to talk, but to provide documents to back up allegations he has made about Trump's shakedown of Volodymyr Zelensky to get dirt on his potential Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

Parnas is the reason Republicans are so scared of opening the Senate trial of Trump to witness testimony. According to Parnas, everyone was in on the Ukraine scheme. Trump himself, of course, but also Vice President Mike Pence was in on it. So was Attorney General William Barr, so was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo andwas there something else Trump was trying to accomplish? Scratch the surface of the Ukraine scandal, and what you see is Russia, and Trump's old pal, Vladimir Putin.

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Parnas was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1972 when it was part of the Soviet Union and was brought to the United States three years later by his parents. He has retained at least some fluency in the Ukrainian language as well as Russian, and last summer served for a time as a translator on the defense team of Dmytro Firtash, working for Washington lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova, a Washington D.C. power couple who appear frequently on Fox News.

Parnas did more than hint at the Russia connection in his interview on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow. He told Maddow that