Rudy Giuliani's criminally charged Ukraine cronies aren't peas in a pod when it comes to impeachment.
Lev Parnas, who worked on the ex-mayor's bid to find dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, will comply in the House impeachment inquiry while his fellow Giuliani pal, Igor Fruman, plans to keep stonewalling, according to people familiar with the matter.
Parnas, who has emerged as a key figure in the fast-moving impeachment probe into President Donald Trump's desire for Ukrainian investigations of Democrats, said last month that he wouldn't comply with a House subpoena for records relating to his work on Giuliani's dirt-digging foray in the European country.
But Joseph Bondy, Parnas' newly hired attorney, said late Monday there had been a change of plans.
"For right now, the important message is that Mr. Dowd is no longer his counsel," Bondy told the New York Daily News, referring to his client's former lawyer, John Dowd, who used to represent Trump in the Mueller investigation and defiantly told House Democrats in early October that the Parnas subpoena was "unduly burdensome."
Bondy continued, "We've taken over his representation and we intend to have him comply with the subpoena, as is expected of any normal person who receives a subpoena."
Bondy noted that his client still reserves the right to invoke certain constitutional rights, such as the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and potential attorney-client privileges as it relates to Giuliani, who at one point represented Parnas.
However, Bondy stressed that Parnas will comply with the subpoena and appear for testimony if the House chairs leading the impeachment investigation asks him to.
"He will comply with the subpoena to the extent permissible," Bondy said.
Fruman, on the other hand, is not going to cooperate in the inquiry despite facing a nearly identical subpoena, according to a source familiar with the matter.
"He has a constitutional right to not comply with the subpoena considering he is indicted," the source told the Daily News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for the three House committees leading the impeachment charge declined to comment.
Both Fruman and Parnas pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court last month after the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York charged them in a sweeping pro-Trump campaign finance scheme.
The campaign finance plot doesn't directly pertain to the impeachment inquiry, though they intersect at one crucial point.
According to their indictment, Parnas and Fruman committed to raising $20,000 for ex-Republican congressman Pete Sessions as part of the campaign finance plot while pushing the Texas politician to call on Trump to remove former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Yovanovitch's eventual ouster is one of several key episodes under scrutiny by impeachment investigators.
Parnas would likely be a crucial witness in the impeachment inquiry, as he's been described in previous testimony as playing a key role in introducing Giuliani to Ukrainian officials as part of the ex-mayor's self-styled corruption investigation of Biden and his son, Hunter.
Giuliani, who has refused to comply in the impeachment investigation despite a subpoena, did not return a request for comment late Monday.
