Documentary shows Hunter Biden in emotional meeting with former enemy

Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, leaves court after pleading guilty in a tax evasion trial in Los Angeles on September 5, 2024. Photo credit: Robyn Beck – AFP via Getty Images

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Two months before he pleaded guilty this week to nine counts of federal tax violations, Hunter Biden met in a Los Angeles conference room with a man inextricably linked to all of his legal troubles.

Lev Parnas, a former Rudy Giuliani associate and his Ukraine liaison, struggled to contain his emotions as he apologized to the First Son for his role in helping then-President Donald Trump find evidence of political nepotism, a search that ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment and a series of criminal investigations into Hunter Biden over drugs, money and a gun.

“We're getting a second chance, both of us,” Hunter Biden told a crying Parnas. “Both of us,” Parnas replied with a fist bump.

The remarkable exchange comes at the end of a two-and-a-half-hour confessional and documentary film that premiered in Brooklyn on Saturday. The film, From Russia with Levwill be shown at the arthouse this week and will be broadcast for the first time on MSNBC on Friday. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was executive producer of the project, her first documentary for the network.

The meeting between Biden and Parnas was not what the film crew envisioned when it began the more than 30 hours of interviews with Parnas and his staff, producers say. In fact, the meeting didn't happen until July.

Parnas was part of the political operation that eventually found itself in Ukraine, where he sought incriminating information on political rivals to help Trump, who at the time was facing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into election interference in 2016 that paved the way for the House to impeach Trump. Parnas' efforts were aimed at preemptively discrediting both Mueller and Joe Biden, who was once again considering a run for the White House.

For Hunter Biden, who faces up to 17 years in prison for pleading guilty to a tax case this week and another 25 years for lying on a gun license in a June conviction, his forgiveness seemed sincere. “It takes a great human being to not only admit you're wrong, but to do it publicly and on stage, as you did,” Biden said.

Parnas and an accomplice were later arrested for their alleged involvement in a plot to funnel foreign money to a member of Congress in exchange for his help in removing the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The case ended in a guilty verdict and a 20-month prison sentence.

“Just so you know, I wasn’t very compassionate,” Hunter Biden said to mutual laughter.

In the years since, Parnas has become an outspoken critic of Trump, calling him “unfit for office” and an ambitious dictator. He has also repeatedly and publicly regretted his involvement in the right's efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch criminal investigations into the Bidens over Hunter Biden's role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. In conservative circles, Hunter Biden's position at Burisma is a manifestation of what is often – and incorrectly – abbreviated to “The Biden Crime Family.” Parnas has testified before Congress that there is no There There.

“I'm ashamed. I really believed we were helping America. But now, when you look back, we destroyed America,” Parnas said to the camera in the new film. “We are so divided. People are at each other's throats. And the sad thing is that this is exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted, and we handed it to him on a silver platter.”

Hunter Biden is also well versed in the image rehabilitation scene. He, too, has published a book explaining his fall from grace. While Parnas was getting caught up in conspiracy theories, dirty political tricks and disinformation, Biden was writing his memoirs about his struggle with addiction, which led him to thank Parnas for his redemption during their meeting as if he were completing a 12-step program.

But Biden, who has been rather defiant about his prosecutions, also took the opportunity to ask Parnas for documents that would later prove to be his undoing in the form of a tax investigation.

Those bank documents helped federal prosecutors build a criminal case in California over unpaid taxes on cash Biden used to finance drugs and prostitutes. Rather than subject his family to another devastating trial – the gun trial in Delaware was deeply embarrassing for the Bidens, with the family's dirty laundry coming to light seemingly daily – Hunter Biden pleaded guilty on Thursday. Sentencing on the tax charges is expected in mid-December, after sentencing on the gun offense in mid-November.

During the meeting, which took place when Hunter Biden was still planning to fight the tax allegations, he was rewarded for appearing on camera with his former arch-enemy.

“How did you get my bank records? My bank records aren't even on a computer,” Biden asked.

Parnas responded that the documents had been secretly subpoenaed by the FBI and distributed in conservative media outlets, and that Giuliani had also taken them to the Justice Department himself.

Biden, a graduate of Yale Law School, went further. “When did it go from a harebrained Rudy Giuliani operation in collaboration with Trump to the Justice Department? When did Trump's lackeys in the Justice Department start conspiring against me as well?”

The answer: almost immediately.

Towards the end of their meeting, Biden appears to acquit Parnas. “From the bottom of my heart, I promise you, you are a hero to me,” Biden said.

The scene is hard to take, but it's proof that no grudge need last forever. It's a fascinating conclusion to a film that Maddow herself has called “a very gonzo story.” But the grace these two men displayed in front of the camera is certainly an exception in today's politics.

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Write to Philip Elliott at [email protected].