THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

A Russian oligarch linked to men previously charged with making an illegal donation to a political action committee set up for former President Donald Trump was himself indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for using those men to funnel contributions to other politicians, authorities revealed Monday.

The oligarch, Andrey Muraviev, already was publicly known to have been the source of political donations made on his behalf by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, former associates of Trump's ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, for the purposes of obtaining licenses for retail cannabis and marijuana businesses.

But it was not known until Monday that Muraviev, 47, had been charged along with the Soviet-born Parnas and Fruman, and two other men in a September 2020 superseding indictment. It was only unsealed with Muraviev's name on it in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, "the Southern District of New York is committed to rooting out efforts by foreigners to interfere with our elections." 

Fruman and Parnas worked with Giuliani, himself a former New York City mayor and Manhattan U.S. attorney, to try to dig up damaging information about President Joe Biden in Ukraine in 2019 and 2020. Biden had then emerged as a leading challenger to White House incumbent Trump.

Muraviev, who is at large and believed to be in Russia, is accused of wiring $1 million to Fruman and Parnas to fund the political contributions in November 2018 in advance of the elections that year.

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