A former Trump campaign associate knew he was communicating with a former Russian intelligence officer during the 2016 election.
In a court filing late Tuesday night, special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors show that Rick Gates — a close associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — and “Person A” were “directly communicating” in September and October 2016.
According to the special counsel, “Person A” has “ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”
The court filing was part of a filing in the case against Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney who worked for Gates and Manafort.
Van der Zwaan pleaded guilty last month to lying to Mueller’s investigators about his interactions with Gates and “Person A.”
“During his first interview with the Special Counsel’s Office, van der Zwaan admitted that he knew of that connection, stating that Gates told him Person A was a former Russian Intelligence Officer with the GRU,” the Tuesday court filing reveals.
The unnamed person had lived in Kiev and Moscow, and worked for one of Manafort’s companies. Other details suggest that person could be Konstantin Kilimnik, who ran Manafort’s consulting office in Kiev for 10 years.
Lawyers for van der Zwaan also filed a 30-page memo Tuesday night, begging their client avoid jail time by describing how his life has been ruined.
“Although he has had occasional visitors and took a car trip with his wife over the Christmas holiday, his existence has largely been solitary. He lives alone in a hotel in a city where he has no close friends. His days are empty and lonely,” the memo reads.
Van der Zwaan will be the first defendant charged as part of the Mueller probe when he faces sentencing on April 3.
Four other people have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with Muller, including Gates, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
