NV Indy Columnist, John Smith: “If Adam Laxalt imagined his testimony […] would lift the cloud of controversy hanging over his connection to shadowy defendants […] then the U.S. Senate candidate is likely to be disappointed.”

Corrupt Senate candidate Adam Laxalt is continuing to face media scrutiny for refusing to answer questions while serving as a witness in the federal corruption trial of Trump associate Lev Parnas. Nevada Independent columnist John Smith highlighted how Laxalt’s federal testimony was riddled with “memory lapses” and that Laxalt showed a complete “lack of demonstrable response to questions about meeting Fruman, and whether [Laxalt’s] campaign had been promised $250,000 from the would-be marijuana moguls.”

The column follows shocking court documents revealed last week that Parnas and Fruman had been led to believe that Laxalt, who was serving as Attorney General, would help them pursue a marijuana license while they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign. This would mark a new major pay-to-play scandal for Laxalt, who consistently used his AG’s office to benefit his special interest donors. 

According to Smith, when Laxalt was “given the opportunity to clear up serious questions about his interactions,” the former Attorney General was unable to do so, stating:

“I spoke with a number of [Parnas’s] associates, but unfortunately, I just can’t connect names with the people.”

“Not to my knowledge,” and “Not that I recall.”

Read more below in The Nevada Independent.

NV Indy: In trial testimony, Laxalt recalls too little to resolve his Lev-and-Igor story

John L. Smith // October 18, 2021

• If Adam Laxalt imagined his testimony on Friday in New York federal court would lift the cloud of controversy hanging over his connection to shadowy defendants charged with violating campaign finance laws, then the U.S. Senate candidate is likely to be disappointed.

• Given the opportunity to clear up serious questions about his interactions with Eastern European-born businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman during the 2018 gubernatorial run, Laxalt’s own words handed his political opponents a gift that figures to reverberate throughout the 2022 senate campaign.

• Parnas and co-defendant Andrey Kukushkin are accused in U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken’s courtroom of using $1 million funneled from Russian financier Andrey Muraviev to make “straw donor” political contributions in 2018 in a failed effort to enter the lucrative recreational marijuana business in Nevada and two other states. 

• Glib one moment, vague the next, at times Laxalt’s memory lapses were painfully acute. He hasn’t been accused of a crime, but I’m guessing Laxalt wishes he could amend some of the statements he made during a methodical cross-examination by Parnas defense attorney Joseph Bondy.

• What remains is Laxalt’s testimony. Some of his memory lapses on the witness stand and lack of demonstrable responses during Bondy’s cross-examination only add fog to a story he ought to be putting behind him.

• Then came his lack of a demonstrative response to questions about meeting Fruman, and whether his campaign had been promised $250,000 from the would-be marijuana moguls. The hard sell of Parnas and Fruman was surely difficult to forget, but Laxalt managed to do just that.

• At the risk of playing armchair legal quarterback, after that exchange I’m left wondering whether anyone close to Laxalt told him to be emphatic when denying whether he remembered anything about receiving a pledge or having an agreement from Fruman to receive a quarter-million dollars.

• It’s not the sort of conversation even a Nevada gubernatorial candidate with plenty of wealthy benefactors would likely forget. If it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen. But Laxalt doesn’t recall.

• Nor did he recall whether he included on his legal bar exam applications the details of a teenage drinking binge that resulted in the police being called. The query was an attempt by Bondy to explore the witness’ candor and credibility, but ended up raising yet another question about the candidate’s memory.

• Laxalt survived his day in court […] but he missed his best opportunity to put an infamous interaction behind him. 

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