Lev Parnas, a Rudy Giuliani associate with ties to Ukraine, arrives for a bail hearing in the Southern District court on  Dec. 17. Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP

Lev Parnas, the indicted ex-associate of Rudy Giuliani charged with federal campaign finance violations in New York, has asked U.S. Attorney General William Barr to recuse himself from the ongoing investigation and prosecution, alleging he has a conflict of interest.

In a letter to Barr, Parnas' attorney Joseph Bondy said Monday that Barr's proximity to the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump prevented him from impartially overseeing Parnas' prosecution, and asked for the appointment of a special prosecutor from outside the Department of Justice.

"Federal ethics guidelines bar federal employees from participating in matters in which their impartiality could be questioned, including matters in which they were personally involved or about which they have personal knowledge," Bondy wrote in the three-page missive.

A spokeswoman for the DOJ declined to comment Tuesday.

The public record, Bondy said, was "replete" with calls for Barr to step aside in light of allegations linking the attorney general to a scheme to pressure Ukraine's president into announcing an investigation of Trump's political rival, Joe Biden.

Parnas himself has claimed to have carried out the pressure campaign at the direction of Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, and last week directly implicated Trump, Barr and Vice President Mike Pence in the alleged scheme.

All three officials have denied allegations of personal involvement.

But Bondy's letter cited references from a whistleblower complaint and a transcript of Trump's July 25 call with his Ukrainian counterpart, in which the president named Barr as the "point person" for those efforts. He also noted public calls from the New York City Bar Association and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary urging Barr to recuse himself from ongoing probes related to the Ukraine scandal.

The conflicts, he said, had also affected Parnas' criminal case in New York, where Bondy has complained that discovery delays have prevented his client from complying with a congressional subpoena that could allow him to be called as a witness at Trump's impeachment trial.

The city bar, which has expressed similar concerns about Barr's involvement, declined to comment Tuesday.

In an interview last week, Bondy told the New York Law Journal that prosecutors in the Southern District of New York had refused Parnas' requests to provide information that could be helpful to the probe and said he plans to use Parnas' potential cooperation with impeachment investigators in part to mitigate any sentence he might receive if convicted in the criminal case.

"Given the totality of the circumstances, we believe it is appropriate for you to recuse yourself from the ongoing investigation and pending prosecution of Mr. Parnas, and to allow the then-acting attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor from outside the Department of Justice, so as to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest and to preserve public trust in the rule of law," Bondy wrote.

Parnas has pleaded not guilty in New York to four counts of conspiracy, falsifying records and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. A federal indictment in October accused Parnas and his associates of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections in order to buy political influence.

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