Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged two associates of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani with a sprawling scheme to oust the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine by funneling foreign money into the campaign coffers of Trump and an unnamed congressman believed to be former Republican Rep. Pete Sessions.

“These allegations are not about some technicality, a civil violation, or some error on a form. This investigation is about corrupt behavior, deliberate lawbreaking,” William Sweeney, assistant director in charge at the FBI’s New York field office, said Thursday during a press conference detailing campaign finance charges against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.

“These allegations are not about some technicality, a civil violation, or some error on a form. This investigation is about corrupt behavior, deliberate lawbreaking.”
—William Sweeney, FBI

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The two men were arrested Wednesday evening at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. as they were waiting to board a one-way flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

Parnas and Fruman, both witnesses in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump, had lunch with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington hours before they were arrested Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

CNN reported that “prosecutors were not intending to unseal the indictment against the Giuliani associates” on Thursday, but “their hand was forced by an attempt by Fruman and Parnas to leave the country.”

Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said during Thursday’s press conference that Fruman and Parnas “broke the law to gain political influence while avoiding disclosure of who was actually making the donations and where the money was coming from.”

“They sought political influence not only to advance their own financial interests,” said Berman, “but to advance the political interests of at least one foreign official, a Ukrainian government official who sought the dismissal of the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine [Marie Louise Yovanovitch].”

The 21-page indictment (pdf) unsealed Thursday alleges that Parnas and Fruman “met with Congressman-1 and sought Congressman-1’s assistance in causing the U.S. government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.”