Tornado Alley (PROG)

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First sentence handed down in Mueller probe

"Looks like that dossier prepared by that MI6 spy is looking pretty good"

[VIDEO] 0:21
Alex van der Zwaan, an associate of former Trump aide Richard Gates, was sentenced
to 30 days in prison for lying to office special counsel Robert Mueller. (Reuters)

By Spencer S. Hsu April 3 at 12:34 PM Email the author

A London-based lawyer was ordered to serve 30 days in prison after a federal judge Tuesday handed down the first sentence in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Alex van der Zwaan, 33, a son-in-law of a prominent Russian-based banker, pleaded guilty Feb. 20 to lying to the FBI about his contacts in September and October of 2016 with a business associate of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and with Manafort’s deputy, former Trump aide Rick Gates. Prosecutors said van der Zwaan also destroyed emails the special counsel had requested.

[...]

Van der Zwaan admitted lying and withholding documents about information prosecutors said was “pertinent” to their investigation — that he had been in direct contact in September and October of 2016 with Gates and with the Manafort associate, identified in court documents as “Person A,” an individual who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”

The defendant also admitted that Gates had informed him that Person A was a former officer of the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors charged that when van der Zwaan was initially interviewed by the FBI on Nov. 3, he falsely told investigators that he last communicated with Gates in mid-August 2016 through an innocuous text message.

Prosecutors made the allegation without naming the Manafort associate but described his role with Manafort in detail. The description matches Konstantin Kilimnik, the Russian manager of Manafort’s lobbying office in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

[...]

Kilimnik ran Manafort’s office in Kiev during the 10 years he did consulting work there, The Washington Post reported in 2017. Kilimnik worked as a liaison to the Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, with whom Manafort had done business. Emails previously described to The Post show Manafort asked Kilimnik during the campaign to offer Deripaska “private briefings” about Trump’s effort.

A Deripaska spokeswoman has said the billionaire, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was not offered and did not receive briefings.

Kilimnik has previously denied intelligence ties, telling The Post in a statement in June that he has “no relation to the Russian or any other intelligence service.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/first-sentence-handed-down-in-mueller-special-counsel-probe/2018/04/03/23e9b21e-3693-11e8-acd5-35eac230e514_story.html?utm_term=.a527cdad0268