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Alex van der Zwaan leaving court in Washington yesterday Susan Walsh/PA Images

Lawyer linked to former Trump aide admits to lying to FBI in Russia probe

Van der Zwaan is linked to former senior Trump campaign official, Robert Gates.

A lawyer linked to a former campaign aide of President Donald Trump pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents Tuesday, as the probe into Russian election meddling gains pace.

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team of investigators accused Alex van der Zwaan of knowingly making false statements about his communications with Richard Gates, a former senior official on the Trump campaign who is under indictment on money laundering and tax-related charges linked to his work in Ukraine.

Van der Zwaan, a London-based lawyer with the international law firm Skadden, was also accused of lying about his contacts with another unnamed person, the charges said. He will be sentenced 3 April, according to the Special Counsel’s Office.

Little information was provided about Van der Zwaan’s links to the Trump campaign, but he represented his law firm in work done for the Ukraine government in 2012 on the corruption trial of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

At that time, Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were working for the Russian-backed Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych, who himself was brought down in an anti-corruption uprising in 2014.

Gates and Manafort, according to Ukraine government records, earned millions of dollars in their work for Yanukovych that was not reported.

Manafort too has been indicted by Mueller on money laundering and tax-related charges. In a filing Friday, Mueller’s team said it had uncovered evidence of bank fraud by Manafort that was not covered in the original charges.

Mueller, whose work focuses on whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, issued a surprise indictment Friday charging 13 Russians with alleged meddling in US politics.

The special counsel is also examining whether Trump sought to obstruct his investigation.

The White House has repeatedly rejected allegations of wrongdoing.

- © AFP, 2018

Read: Trump blames Democrats and Obama for failing to stop Russian election meddling

Read: Russian Foreign Minister dismisses US election meddling probe as ‘blabber’

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    Mute Walt Jabsco
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    Feb 21st 2018, 7:18 AM

    Drain the swamp!

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    Mute David Dineen
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    Feb 21st 2018, 7:17 AM

    A liar of a lawyer, the world spins easier on truth

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    Mute David Knight
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    Feb 21st 2018, 12:53 PM

    The question of collusion keeps being asked. Did Trump and his team actively work with Russians to damage Clinton’s campaign? This is not proven yet, but we know Trump Jnr, and his son-in-law Kushner tried to, they say unsuccessfully, get information from the Russians that they must have known was obtained illegally. The information in question was shortly afterwards released by Wikileaks. But one question I don’t see being asked is why Trump had so many advisers with close ties to Russia and with clear Russian influence over them? From early on in his campaign, he repeatedly asked “Wouldn’t it be good if we got along with Russia??” So clearly someone in his campaign was lobbying for Russian interests. When we hear some of the details of why these guys were supporting Russian interests, and we add to that Trump’s continued opposition to the current investigation, where his “Russian” advisers are shown to be closely linked with Russian activity, to the point of being illegal in that case of Manafort & Gates, you know something stinks here.

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    Mute David Sinclair
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    Feb 21st 2018, 9:30 AM

    Jeez, as tenuous links go this one takes the biscuit.

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    Mute Seamus Mc Meel
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    Feb 21st 2018, 9:46 AM

    @David Sinclair: About as tenuous as your links to reality,I’d say…

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Feb 21st 2018, 7:30 PM

    FAKE NEWS—Lawyers simply don’t lie, so they don’t!

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