Mueller investigation unveils fresh charges
February 20, 2018
London-based Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty on Tuesday to making false statements to federal prosecutors working with special counsel Robert Mueller.
The son-in-law of one of Russia's richest men admitted to lying to prosecutors about his interactions with former Trump campaign official Rick Gates and an unnamed person during an FBI interview late last year, according to Washington DC District Court papers. The papers did not say if he was now cooperating with investigators.
A US judge set his sentencing for April 3.
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The charge stems from Mueller's probe into former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, rather than into Trump's 2016 election campaign.
Gates and Manafort stand accused of leading a lobbying campaign in Washington DC on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests.
Both men were charged with conspiring to launder millions of dollars they earned from political consulting work in Ukraine. The lobbying work dates back to before US President Donald Trump's campaign for the White House and is not thought to be directly tied to Russia's alleged election meddling.
The charges could nevertheless mount pressure on former Trump aides to cooperate with the Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
On Friday, Mueller's team charged 13 Russian nationals and a Russian propaganda arm with crimes related to election interference.
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Van der Zwaan's smoking gun
Investigators pointed to a report prepared at Manafort's behest by the US law firm Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, whose associates included van der Zwaan.
Ukraine's former pro-Russia president, Viktor Yanukovych used the report to justify to the European Court of Human Rights the pretrial detention of a former prime minister and political foe, Yulia Tymoshenko.
According to the prosecution's charging document, van der Zwaan lied to investigators about his work on the report, claiming that he had last communicated with Gates in mid-August and the unnamed individual, identified only as "Person A," in 2014.
In fact, according to Mueller's team, the London-based lawyer was found to have last spoken to Gates and Person A in September 2016, and even secretly recorded the calls.
Moreover, the prosecution also found that van der Zwaan "deleted and otherwise did not produce emails."
Ties to one of Russia's richest men
Van der Zwaan is married to the daughter of Ukrainian-Russian billionaire German Khan.
Khan's Alfa Group, one of Russia's largest industrial investment conglomerates, appeared several times in the infamous Trump-Russia dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele.
Khan and his partners are currently suing online publication Buzzfeed over its publication of the dossier, saying remarks made about the firm were false and defamatory.
dm/aw (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)