The newest Mueller indictment is in!
The Special Counsel just indicted a man named Alex Van Der Zwaan. The indictment stems from his lying to the FBI about his connection to Rick Gates, an associate of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Rick Gates, if you remember, turned himself over to FBI custody last October after he was charged with a variety of financial crimes, including money laundering.
This breaking scoop comes via Axios:
Van Der Zwaan has a plea hearing scheduled for Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. EST. According to the indictment, the false statements came when Mueller’s team probed Van Der Zwaan’s work for the Ukraine Ministry of Justice. Van Der Zwaan was officially charged on Feb. 16 in a federal court in Washington.
JUST IN: Bob Mueller has charged Alex Van Der Zwaan with lying to FBI investigators about his interactions with Rick Gates https://t.co/SqLWz87MEw
— Axios (@axios) February 20, 2018
This indictment, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with collusion with Russia. But it does show that Mueller is being meticulous in his approach to the Trump-Russia probe.
Just last Friday, Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals who were caught meddling in the 2016 presidential election. What made this surprising was that the charges came without warning. Mueller is running an airtight ship with no leaks whatsoever.
We don’t know yet what Mueller’s plan is indicting these individuals with what amounts to petty crimes. Is he trying to cajole them into turning on Trump, and revealing any secrets about possible Russian collusion? Is he trying to use these indictments to uncover more dirt on Trump? It would seem like Mueller is rattling the cage just to see what falls out.
I guess we’ll find out exactly what Mueller’s plan is in the coming months.
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