Washington — A Dutch lawyer with direct knowledge of contacts between Russian intelligence and a top official in US President Donald Trump’s campaign became the first person sentenced in special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s sprawling investigation Tuesday. Alex van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $20,000 fine after pleading guilty to lying about his contacts with former campaign deputy Rick Gates and a former Russian intelligence official. Van der Zwaan, a Dutch national with Russian roots and son-in-law of a prominent Russian tycoon, was a lawyer in London for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in 2012 when he carried out work for the Ukraine government through Gates and Gates’s close associate, Paul Manafort. In 2016, after Manafort became chairman of Trump’s election campaign and took Gates as his deputy, Van der Zwaan and Gates both had communications with a person they knew as a former official of Russia’s GRU intelligence agency, prosecutors said. According t...
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