COLLUSION RAP INVESTIGATED ON MANAFORT
30 days for lawyer tied to Don’s campaign chief
THE FIRST SENTENCE stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling was handed down Tuesday by a federal judge in Washington.
Alexander van der Zwaan, 33, who in February pleaded guilty to lying to U.S. federal agents, was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
“What I did was wrong. I apologize to the court for my conduct,” van der Zwaan told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson before she ordered him to spend a month behind bars and pay a $20,000 fine.
The Dutch national was facing as long as six months under federal sentencing guidelines.
His attorneys argued for no jail time, noting that the one-time lawyer’s wife is pregnant and due to give birth in August in London.
Jackson also gave van der Zwaan two months of probation and said he could return to England after his jail time is up.
“This was more than a mistake,” the judge said as she issued the sentence. “This was more than a lapse or a misguided moment.”
Four other people — some with deep ties to President Trump — have copped to charges brought by Mueller’s office.
Former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos have all reached plea deals, but their sentencings are on hold as they cooperate with prosecutors.
A California man also pleaded guilty to helping Russian hackers obtain bank accounts while they were waging an online assault on the U.S. during the 2016 election.
Prosecutors additionally have accused 13 Russians and a trio of Kremlin-linked companies of attempting to manipulate American public opinion through an aggressive social media campaign.
Van der Zwaan, a former lawyer at the powerful Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm and the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, lied about his last communications with Gates and then deleted emails Mueller’s office had requested, according to court documents.
While van der Zwaan has no direct ties to the Trump campaign, he allegedly had discussions during the election season with Gates and an unnamed associate who was a former Russian intelligence officer, according to court papers.
He worked with Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — who is also facing a slew of charges brought by Mueller — while they were working with Kremlin-connected politicians in Ukraine.
A mystery man in the recently unsealed court documents is believed to be former Manafort employee Konstantin Kilimnik, though he has denied any connections to Russian intelligence.
Mueller’s team, while instructed to probe Russian efforts to interfere in the election, is also looking at whether anyone from Trump’s campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 contest.
Hoping to coax the President in for an interview, Mueller reportedly told Trump’s lawyers that he is not a criminal target even though he was a subject of the investigation. PROSECUTORS went there. Paul Manafort, President Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, is being investigated not just for financial crimes, but also for alleged collusion with the Russian government, according to a court filing late Monday. Manafort’s current charges center on the millions he earned from the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. He has challenged the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate work that occurred before he joined the Trump campaign in 2016. But Monday’s filing, which includes long arguments about the role of a special counsel, says acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein explicitly spelled out that the alleged crimes could be connected. A Rosenstein memo told Mueller last August that the scope of the investigation included allegations that Manafort (photo) committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law.”