Rachel Maddow to Debut Documentary About a Trump Turncoat

The Maddow media empire is growing. Rachel Maddow is the producer of a new documentary film about a key side-character from the first Trump impeachment called From Russia With Lev.

Lev Parnas — for those to whom the initial Trump impeachment already feels a lifetime ago — is a Soviet-born former Rudy Giuliani associate who got mixed up in the naughty business of scouring Ukraine for supposed dirt Giuliani believed the nation held on Hunter Biden and the Biden family, as well as in trying to orchestrate the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Parnas first hit the news as a would-be fugitive, who had tried to flee the country on an airplane to Germany. But he got caught and arrested — and then made the interesting decision to yap. The film is based in part on Maddow’s blockbuster exclusive interview with Parnas in January 2020, which drew a massive audience and earned an Emmy nod for Maddow. The film is augmented with selections from dozens of hours of new interviews with Parnas and his associates, as well as what the production team are billing as “secret footage.” 

Parnas would ultimately testify under oath against Trump before Congress, describing the coordinated campaign to falsely tar the Bidens with allegations of corruption in Ukraine. His criminal wrongdoing did not go unpunished. Parnas was later convicted, and spent time in prison for laundering illegal donations to the Trump campaign. (Parnas also talked to Rolling Stone about dropping a dime on Trump: “They thought I would shut up and be quiet, but I just want to get the truth out.”)

The award winning director of the documentary is Billy Corben (known for the film Cocaine Cowboy). The Parnas saga mixes international intrigue with strangely agreeable slapstick, Corben says. Parnas had aptly and hilariously been linked to a company called “Fraud Guarantee,” for example. The director insists: “Lev Parnas’ story is like Tom Clancy, if Jack Ryan was played by Jackie Mason.” Corben refers to the film’s genre as Florida Men Behaving Badly with World-Changing Geopolitical Stakes.

The film, acquired by MSNBC films, will premiere Sept. 7 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of an event billed as MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024. It will gain a wider airing in theaters and on the network later that month. 

For Maddow, the movie represents another foray into mass media, expanding on her long-running cable show, her podcast “Ultra,” and a companion book Prequel about a fascist plot to take over the country in the pre-World War II era. 

Touting the Parnas movie, Maddow describes his story as “un-put-down-able.” She also argues that the world should be populated with “more documentaries from an insider’s perspective about the Trump presidency,” wishcasting a Mike Pence documentary, a John Kelly documentary, and even a Rex Tillerson documentary. “But it takes someone like Lev Parnas,” Maddow says, “to be brave enough to speak up first.”