Who is Alex van der Zwaan, the First Person Sentenced in the Mueller Probe?
Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation just placed its first person behind bars. So, who is he?
Alex van der Zwaan was served with a 30-day jail sentence on Tuesday along with a $20,000 fine after admitting to lying to special agents in Mueller’s Russia probe during November 2017. The false statements concerned e-mail communications and phone calls between him and Richard Gates, an ex-campaign aide to President Donald Trump.
Van der Zwaan is a 33-year-old Dutch attorney who is also the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan, who is also linked to President Vladimir Putin. Khan is one of the individuals named in the infamous Trump-Russia dossier that suggests Trump could be open to blackmail from the Kremlin.
Van der Zwaan was a London-based associate of a high-powered law firm called Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom in the early 2010s.
At the time, Gates and Paul Manafort, another ex-Trump campaign aide, were employed by then Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected in a possibly rigged election and was supported by the Kremlin.
In 2011, when Yanukovych went after one of his political rivals, Yulia Tymoshenko, having her jailed, Gates and Manafort solicited the help of van der Zwaan’s firm to create a report saying she shouldn’t be imprisoned.
Flash forward to November 2017: Mueller’s team wants to know what van der Zwaan’s link is to Gates and an unidentified individual called “Person A.” It was then that van der Zwaan lied, saying he last spoke with Gates in August 2016 and that since 2014, he had no contact with Person A, when in fact, he had been communicating with both about the law firm’s report, according to the indictment. Van der Zwaan also fibbed when he said he didn’t know why the firm didn’t give Mueller an email exchanged between him and the unidentified person.
Van der Zwaan has since been fired by the firm, it says it is cooperating with investigators.
While the Mueller probe remains enshrouded in a mix of questions and secrecy, van der Zwaan’s sentencing is a clear show by the special counsel that he’s serious about taking action in the investigation.
[Image via screengrab]
