Belgian-born lawyer Alex van der Zwaan was given 30 days in prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine by a U.S. judge Tuesday, making him the first person to be sentenced in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia investigation, Reuters reports.
Van der Zwaan, who worked in 2012 for the Ukraine Ministry of Justice, had pleaded guilty in February to lying about an interaction with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, the longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Van der Zwaan apparently falsely told Mueller's team that his final communication with Gates was an "innocuous text message," the charges say. Van der Zwaan actually spoke "with both Gates" and an unnamed Russian intelligence-linked source in 2016 about a report on the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister. "It's unclear whether Van der Zwaan's case is related to the U.S. election," The Chicago Tribune writes.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
What to know about Real IDs, America's new identification cardsThe Explainer People without a Real ID cannot board a commercial flight as of May 7, 2025
-
Where is the left-wing Reform?Today's Big Question As the Labour Party leans towards the right, progressive voters have been left with few alternatives
-
Scattered Spider: who are the hackers linked to M&S and Co-op cyberattacks?The Explainer 'Decentralised and adaptive', its mainly English-speaking members operate like an 'organised criminal network'
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
