Sentence given in Russia probe
Dutchman guilty of lying; Manafort scrutiny was OK’D
WASHINGTON — A Dutch attorney who lied to federal agents investigating former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days in prison in the first punishment handed down in the special counsel’s Russia investigation. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.
Alex van der Zwaan, 33, had faced up to six months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, and his attorneys had pushed for him to pay a fine and leave the country.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, citing the need to deter others from lying in an investigation of international importance, said incarceration was necessary.
“These were not mistakes. These were lies,” Jackson told van der Zwaan as he stood before her. Being able to “write a check and walk away,” she added later, would not fit the seriousness of the crime or send the right message.
The criminal case against van der Zwaan is not directly related to Russian election interference, the main focus of Mueller’s probe. But it has revealed new details about the government’s case against Manafort and opened a window into the intersecting universes of international law, foreign consulting work and politics.
The case has also exposed connections between senior Trump campaign aides, including Rick Gates, and Russia. Just last week, the government disclosed that van der Zwaan and Gates spoke during the 2016 presidential campaign with a man Gates had previously described as having ties to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Gates is now cooperating with Mueller.
The sentencing came just hours after another development in the special counsel’s investigation.
In a court filing late Monday, prosecutors revealed that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had in August explicitly authorized the special counsel to investigate allegations that Manafort colluded with the Russian government.
Manafort has challenged Mueller’s authority and asked a judge to dismiss charges against him. But in their new filing, prosecutors revealed that Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, authorized the investigation of any crimes related to payments Manafort received from the Ukrainian government during the tenure of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Rosenstein also empowered Mueller to investigate allegations Manafort “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials” to interfere with the presidential election.