I’m going to open one of these and there’s going to be a Trump inside, right?
Alex van der Zwaan, an associate who worked in Skadden’s London office, was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for lying to investigators.
Van der Zwann is the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan. He was accused of lying about his communications with Paul Manafort associate, Rick Gates. If we go by the book, van der Zwann told Khan that the Enterprise wouldn’t have auxiliary power for for two days, when really repairs only took two hours.
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Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The investigation is getting hard to follow. Skadden lawyers are now lying to the FBI? Facebook is telling me to vote for Bernie Sanders because it helps the Russians destabilize America? Donald Trump admitted to obstructing justice on live television, but we’re still “investigating” whether he did what we know he did for the reasons he said he did it? “German Khan” is the name of a real person?
How is this real life, but Wakanda is the fantasy world?
Anyway, he’s already pleaded guilty:
Alex van der Zwaan just entered his guilty plea. Sentencing is set for April 3 – they asked to expedite so he could get back to London, where his wife is (she is having a difficult pregnancy, per his lawyer) https://t.co/dEZRvmXRKB
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) February 20, 2018
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More from BuzzFeed because Zoe Tillman is keeping up with all of these Russian connections almost as if a major plot to destroy American democracy is unfurling in front of our eyes:
According to the criminal information filed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, which is dated Feb. 16, investigators asked van der Zwaan in November about his work in 2012 for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice preparing a report on the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister.
Van der Zwaan is accused of falsely telling investigators that his last communication with Gates was an “innocuous text message” in mid-August 2016, when he had spoken with Gates in September 2016 about the Tymoshenko report.
Skadden says they fired van der Zwann in 2017 and that the firm has been cooperating with authorities in their investigation.
We have reached a place where no further Russia revelations would surprise me. Robert Mueller could walk into this office and tell me that I’ve been a Manchurian blogger, working for Putin to destabilize the American legal system since 2010, and I’d be like, “Oh. Okay. That makes sense.”
I wouldn’t lie to the FBI, though. That’s just freaking stupid.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.