WHAT'S IN A PICTURE

The Michigan Democratic Party is seizing on a pair of photos of Republican and U.S. Senate candidate John James with President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and recently indicted businessman Lev Parnas. The photos, one that surfaced as part of a CNN story and another posted to one of Parnas's social media accounts, shows the trio at James' campaign events in 2018, when he was running against Senator Debbie Stabenow (D). An associate of Giuliani, Parnas is a Ukrainian-born US citizen whose family first moved to the Detroit area. He was indicted in October in the US District Court's Southern District of New York on allegations of campaign finance violations related to the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Federal prosecutors say Parnas conspired to funnel foreign money to candidates in order to buy potential influence with them. While the indictment states Parnas and other defendants concealed the scheme from candidate campaigns, state Democrats are raising questions. "John James held a sit-down meeting with a shady businessman and Trump's personal lawyer as they were engaged in an illegal campaign finance scheme, and the question is 'why,'" said Democratic party spokesman Alex Japko.