Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born Jewish former associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a central figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, has announced his bid for Congress in Miami.
He will be running as a Democrat in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, joining an already crowded race of Democrats seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American who is in her third congressional term.
“I’ve spent years speaking out, exposing corruption, and warning about the dangers facing our democracy. Now it’s time to take that fight directly where it belongs, to Congress,” Parnas wrote in a post on X announcing his entry into the race.
Parnas, a Jewish Ukrainian-American businessman, rose to national prominence during the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019, when he turned on the president after helping him and Giuliani try to find damaging information in Ukraine about former President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. (The Senate acquitted Trump the following year.)
Parnas and his business partner, Igor Fruman, also cultivated ties with several Jewish figures and organizations, including the prominent Ukrainian rabbi Moshe Azman, who met with Giuliani in 2019. Parnas and Fruman met with Trump during the White House Hanukkah party in 2018.
'Seen the swamp'
“I’m running for Congress because we must stand up to Donald Trump and his lackeys like Maria Salazar,” Parnas’ campaign website reads. “I’ve seen the swamp from the inside. They know me in Washington, and I’m the last person they want with a seat in Congress and the power to call them before the people.”
Parnas is not the only Jewish figure from the former Soviet Union who played a role in the impeachment to be mounting a Democratic bid for national office in Florida. Alex Vindman, who testified before Congress as a National Security Council staffer and later left the military after facing alleged bullying from Trump and his allies, is running for Senate. His brother Eugene Vindman, who had been an ethics specialist at the White House, was elected to Congress in Virginia last year.
“I stepped up when my country needed a soldier, I reported corruption at the highest levels of government, and now I’m stepping up again to fight for Floridians,” wrote Alex Vindman in his campaign announcement in January.
In 2021, Parnas was convicted of federal campaign finance violations tied to a scheme to trade political contributions for support for a cannabis company and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. (Felons are barred from voting in Florida but not from running for office.)
His campaign did acknowledge his criminal past, saying it “included both professional successes and highly public challenges, including his appearance in a widely viewed documentary and a period of federal custody connected to past legal issues.”
Since finishing his term on home confinement in September 2023, Parnas has rebranded himself as a vocal critic of Trump on his podcast and in media appearances. His son, Aaron, is a Gen Z influencer who burst onto TikTok in 2022 as a pro-Ukraine voice and now commands an audience as a liberal news commentator.
In a campaign announcement on Thursday, Parnas said he was running for Congress “with a focus on cleaning up Washington’s corruption, holding the powerful to account, strengthening affordability, expanding support for seniors, and improving our desperately broken immigration system.”
The Democratic primary for Parnas’ district will take place on Aug. 18. The general election will be held on Nov. 3.