Dutch lawyer pleads guilty to lying about interaction with Rick Gates

Source: CNN | February 20, 2018 | Katelyn Polantz, David Shortell and Marshall Cohen

Washington (CNN) – A European lawyer pleaded guilty Tuesday to lying to investigators in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, after he covered up his discussions with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates and a business associate based in Ukraine in September 2016, while the Trump campaign operation was in full swing.

The filing is further evidence that Mueller’s investigators have ratcheted the pressure on Gates as he negotiates a plea deal and that they continue to look into the work of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Gates while they worked for Russian-allied clients and the Trump campaign.

Alex van der Zwaan, a 33-year-old Dutch citizen, said he also lied to investigators about his failure to turn over email communications to the special counsel’s office and to his law firm as it cooperated with Mueller on its investigation of Manafort and Gates’ foreign lobbying.

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His wife, Eva Kahn, the daughter of Russian billionaire German Khan, is due in August.

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In early November, prosecutors questioned van der Zwaan on his work with international law firm Skadden Arps. They were investigating Manafort’s, Gates’ and other individuals’ compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which governs foreign lobbying and propaganda work for foreign governments in the US, and wanted to know who paid for a Ukrainian report on the trial of a former prime minister and how it was paid for, prosecutors said in court Tuesday.

Van der Zwaan spoke with the special counsel’s office a second time in early December to confess to his inaccuracies and what he knew, according to prosecutors’ statements in court and a plea agreement released Tuesday.

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Van der Zwaan worked with Manafort, Gates and the public relations firm in 2012 to fashion a public spin on the Ukrainian report without his law firm’s knowledge.

He had given a public relations firm a copy of the report before its public release, and handed Gates talking points about the report that would help the Ukrainian clients, against the direction of a more senior lawyer at the Skadden law firm, according to court documents and prosecutors’ descriptions in court.

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The prosecutors’ criminal charge Tuesday explains how van der Zwaan was in touch with Gates and an unnamed colleague of Gates’ who was principally based in Ukraine again in September 2016.

They discussed how a criminal complaint in Ukraine could implicate a former Ukrainian official, Skadden and Manafort himself.

The calls were encrypted, and van der Zwaan recorded them and took notes, prosecutors said. At the time, Gates was working with the Trump campaign.

Van der Zwaan had first told prosecutors his last interaction with Gates was an “innocuous text message” in August 2016, leaving out his involvement in the Ukrainian legal discussion.

Van Der Zwaan also deleted and then failed to produce emails he exchanged in Russian in September 2016 with the unnamed person, called “Person A” in court. One of them discussed how the Ukrainian criminal court action was “essentially the tip of the iceberg,” prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said in court Tuesday.

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He is the son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan, who is one of the most prominent businessmen in Russia. Khan co-founded Alfa Group, a large financial conglomerate, and was recently named in the Treasury Department’s list of Russian oligarchs. CNN reported last year that the FBI examined whether there was a computer server connection during the 2016 presidential campaign between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization, though there isn’t any indication that van der Zwaan is connected to that matter.

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