--- title: Documentary Shows Hunter Biden in Emotional Meeting With One-Time Enemy description: A new documentary ends with the first ever meeting of Hunter Biden and Lev Parnas, who apologized to Biden for helping Giuliani investigate Biden canonical: https://time.com/7018899/hunter-biden-documentary-maddow/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-07T17:30:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:17.902Z article:section: Politics og:title: Documentary Shows Hunter Biden in Emotional Meeting With One-Time Enemy og:description: A new documentary ends with an emotional meeting of Hunter Biden and Lev Parnas, who apologized to Biden for helping Giuliani investigate Biden og:url: https://time.com/7018899/hunter-biden-documentary-maddow/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d3f882224272b62/698a5aa3b21a9c64d450a6e5/GettyImages-2169740456.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRIAL-JUSTICE-HUNTER BIDEN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Documentary Shows Hunter Biden in Emotional Meeting With One-Time Enemy twitter:description: A new documentary ends with an emotional meeting of Hunter Biden and Lev Parnas, who apologized to Biden for helping Giuliani investigate Biden twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d3f882224272b62/698a5aa3b21a9c64d450a6e5/GettyImages-2169740456.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Documentary Shows Hunter Biden in Emotional Meeting With His One-Time Tormentor > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges [Watch (HLS stream): Hunter Biden Pleads Guilty to Federal Tax Charges](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hJg7Gt79.m3u8) (0:58)  _Published 2024-09-06. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all federal charges in his tax evasion case Thursday, avoiding a trial that was expected to be a grueling and costly public spectacle about his profligate spending habits and foreign business deals._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 7, 2024 5:30 PM UTC  Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, leaves court after his guilty plea in his trail on tax evasion in Los Angeles, on September 5, 2024 Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, leaves court after his guilty plea in his trail on tax evasion in Los Angeles, on September 5, 2024 Robyn Beck—AFP via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 7, 2024 5:30 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Two months before he pleaded guilty this week to nine federal tax charges, Hunter Biden was in a conference room in Los Angeles meeting a man inextricably linked to all his legal troubles. Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani and his fixer in Ukraine, struggled to contain his emotions as he apologized to the First Son for his role helping then-President Donald Trump seek out evidence of political nepotism, a quest that ultimately led to Trump’s first [impeachment](https://time.com/5751699/donald-trump-impeached/) trial, as well as a series of criminal probes into Hunter Biden over drugs, money, and a gun. “We get a second chance, both of us,” Hunter Biden told a crying Parnas. “Both of us,” Parnas replied with a fist-bump. The striking exchange comes at the tail end of a two-and-a-half-hour confessional-slash-documentary that debuted Saturday in Brooklyn. The film, _From Russia With Lev_, will have arthouse screenings this week and its broadcast debut on Friday on MSNBC. MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow executive produced the project, her first documentary for the network. The Biden-Parnas meeting was not one the film’s team imagined when they began more than 30 hours of interviews with Parnas and his associates, producers say. In fact, The summit didn’t come together until July. Parnas was part of the political operation that eventually found itself on the ground in Ukraine looking for dirt on political rivals to help Trump, who at the time was facing special counsel Robert Mueller’s [probe](https://time.com/5572397/mueller-report-congress-referral/) into 2016 election interference that paved the way for the House to impeach Trump. Parnas’ effort was looking to preemptively discredit both Mueller and Joe Biden, who was again mulling a White House run. HunterBiden, who is [facing](https://time.com/6987519/hunter-biden-verdict-addiction/) up to 17 years in prison for this week’s tax-case guilty [plea](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-trial.html) and another 25 years for lying on a gun application in a June [conviction](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/05/hunter-biden-alford-guilty-plea-taxes/), seemed sincere in his forgiveness. “It really takes a big person to not only admit that they are wrong and to do so in public and to do so on the stage you did,” Biden said. Parnas and an associate later were arrested for their alleged role in a scheme to direct foreign cash to a member of Congress in exchange for his help pushing the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from the posting, a case that [resulted](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/lev-parnas-giulianis-former-ukraine-fixer-gets-20-months-in-prison) in a guilty verdict and a 20-month prison sentence. “Just so you know, I wasn’t very sympathetic,” 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 aspirational dictator. He also has repeatedly and publicly repented for getting wrapped up in the right-wing effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch criminal probes in the Bidens for Hunter Biden’s [role](https://time.com/5733799/ukraine-fears-burisma-probe-trump-hunter-biden-fallout/) on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. In conservative circles, Hunter Biden’s [position](https://time.com/2964493/ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-burisma/) with Burisma is a manifestation of what is often—and incorrectly—short-handed to The Biden Crime Family. Parnas has testified to Congress that there’s no _there_ there. “I’m ashamed of myself. I truly believed that we were helping America. But looking back at it now, we destroyed America,” Parnas told the camera during the new film. “We have such division. People are at each other’s throats. And the sad part: that is exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted, and we gave it to him on a silver platter.” Hunter Biden similarly knows the image rehabilitation tour circuit. He too published a book accounting for his fall from grace. Whereas Parnas got swept up in conspiracy theories and political dirty tricks and disinformation, Biden wrote his [memoirs](https://time.com/5952773/hunter-biden-memoir-beautiful-things/) about his battle with addiction, which led him to thank Parnas during their meeting for making amends as if working a 12-step program. But Biden, who has been fairly defiant about his prosecutions, also saw the chance to ask Parnas about documents that would later come to haunt him in the form of a tax case. Those bank documents helped federal prosecutors bring a criminal case in California about unpaid taxes on cash Biden used to fund drugs and hookers. Rather than put his family through another devastating trial—the gun case in Delaware was deeply [embarrassing](https://www.axios.com/2024/05/25/biden-family-justice-department-hunter-trials) to the Bidens as family dirty laundry seemed to come up daily—Hunter Biden entered a guilty plea on Thursday. Sentencing for the tax charges is expected mid-December after a mid-November sentencing on the gun conviction. During the meeting, which took place while Hunter Biden still planned to fight the tax charges, saw his payoff for appearing on camera with his one-time nemesis. “How did they 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 circulated in conservative media. Giuliani also took them himself to the Department of Justice. Biden, a graduate of Yale Law, then went further. “When did it cross over from being a hair-brained Rudy Giuliani operation in concert with Trump to the Department of Justice? When did Trump’s lackeys inside the Department of Justice begin to also conspire to take me on?” The reply: Almost immediately. Toward the end of their meeting, Biden seems to absolve Parnas. “Bottom of my heart, I promise you, you’re a hero to me,” Biden said. The scene is tough to watch but a demonstration that no grudge has to last forever. It offers a fascinating coda to a film that Maddow herself has [described](https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/rachel-maddow-lev-parnas-from-russia-with-msnbc-1236093652/) as a “very gonzo story.” But to be sure, the grace these two men modeled for the cameras is very much the exception to politics today. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7018899/hunter-biden-documentary-maddow/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7018899/hunter-biden-documentary-maddow/"},"headline":"Documentary Shows Hunter Biden in Emotional Meeting With His One-Time Tormentor","datePublished":"2024-09-07T17:30:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:50:17.902Z","description":"“We get a second chance, both of us,” Biden told a crying Lev Parnas","url":"https://time.com/7018899/hunter-biden-documentary-maddow/","keywords":["The D.C. 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