Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev was charged with conspiring with associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others to funnel foreign cash into U.S. political campaigns, according to an unsealed indictment released on Monday.
In September 2020, a grand jury returned an indictment against Andrey Muraviev of Russia, charging him with making illegal political donations and for conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions in the names of straw donors, along with conspirators who had ties to Rudolph Giuliani, according to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Muraviev is charged with conspiring with Lev Parnas, Andrey Kukushkin, and Igor Fruman, and others, who were convicted at trial or have pleaded guilty to these crimes.
“As alleged, Andrey Muraviev, a Russian national, attempted to influence the 2018 elections by conspiring to push a million dollars of his foreign funds to candidates and campaigns,” said Williams. “He attempted to corrupt our political system to advance his business interests. The Southern District of New York is committed to rooting out efforts by foreigners to interfere with our elections.”
In the spring of 2018, Muraviev, Kukushkin, Fruman, and Parnas decided to launch a business aimed at acquiring retail cannabis and marijuana licenses in the United States.
As part of that plan, Muraviev agreed to provide $1 million to fund hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal political donations in Florida, Nevada, Texas, New York and New Jersey leading up to the November 2018 elections, according to the indictment.
“As alleged, Muraviev, a Russian foreign national, made illegal political contributions and conspired with Parnas, Kukushkin and Fruman to obscure their true source,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael J. Driscoll. “The money Muraviev injected into our political system, as alleged, was directed to politicians with views favorable to his business interests and those of his co-conspirators. As today’s action demonstrates, we will continue to aggressively pursue all those who seek to illegally effect our nation’s elections.”
Muraviev is believed to be in Russia and remains at large, according to the indictment from 2020 that was unsealed in Manhattan federal court Monday.
The arrests of Parnas and Fruman in 2019 earned attention because they worked to remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine as part of Trump’s effort to compel that country to tarnish the reputation of his rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
Giuliani has not been charged in the case, but last May prosecutors executed search warrants at Giuliani’s home and office.
An attorney for Parnas, Joseph A. Bondy, said that Parnas had a number of interactions with Trump and Giuliani, despite Trump’s claim that he was not familiar with the Russian fixer.
“Any sentient being looking at the public record of the president and Parnas together — during intimate dinners, waving to each other at rallies, taking pictures together, and of Parnas’s alleged involvement with the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani — could divine that the president and Parnas knew each other,” said Bondy.