Mueller Indicts Russian-Connected Lawyer For Lying To Federal Authorities

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Days after the indictments of 13 Russian nationals and three organizations, there is yet another indictment in the Russia investigation. News broke on Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a lawyer named Alex Van Der Zwaan after lying to investigators.

Not much is known about Van Der Zwaan yet, but as of now, he’s known to have worked at a law firm in Ukrania and to have Russian ties.

The charge filed by Mueller’s office said Van Der Zwaan “did willfully and knowingly make materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” to the FBI on November 3, 2017. According to the document, the lawyer lied about his communication with former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates. Gates, who was also once an associate of the indicted Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is expected to plead guilty in the Russia probe for fraud and money laundering.

It seems that every day brings a new development in the Russia scandal, and it’s sure to keep Trump fuming. He reportedly spent the entirety of this past weekend fuming about the investigation at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, even claiming that the amount of time the FBI was dedicating to the probe was the reason it failed to act on a tip warning them about the perpetrator of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

At this point, only Trump’s most hardcore loyalists could deny that Russia swayed the election and that the Trump campaign knew about it and — if they didn’t actively collude — at the very least did nothing to stop it.