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    Russian Internet Research Agency

    Internet Research Agency

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    See also: Web brigades (also known as troll army or troll factory)

    "Trolls from Olgino" gained usage after fake accounts for Internet trolling were traced back to Saint Petersburg, Russia.[1]

    The Internet Research Agency (IRA) (Агентство интернет-исследований), also known as Glavset[2] and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino or kremlebots, is a Russian company, based in Saint Petersburg, that engages in online influence operations on behalf of Russian business interests. The agency has employed fake accounts registered on major social networks, discussion boards, online newspaper sites, and video hosting services in order to promote the Kremlin's interests in domestic and foreign policy including Ukraine and the Middle East as well as attempting to influence the 2016 United States presidential election. More than 1,000 paid bloggers and commenters reportedly worked in a single building of the agency in 2015.

    The extent to which these Russians tried to influence public opinion using social media became widely known after a June 2014 BuzzFeed article greatly expanded on government documents published by hackers earlier that year.[3] The IRA gained worldwide media attention by June 2015, when one of its offices was reported as having data from fake accounts used for biased Internet trolling. Subsequently, there were news reports of individuals receiving monetary compensation for performing these tasks.[1]

    The United States Department of Justice on 16 February 2018 indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian entities, including the Internet Research Agency, of violating criminal laws with the intent to interfere "with U.S. elections and political processes", according to the Justice Department.[4]
    Contents

    1 Origin
    2 Organizers
    2.1 Strategic
    2.2 Tactical
    3 Offices
    3.1 In Saint Petersburg
    3.2 In other cities
    4 Work organization
    5 Trolling themes
    6 Organized anti-Ukrainian campaign
    7 Reactions
    8 Assessments
    9 Additional activities of organizers
    10 Lawsuit
    11 Indictments
    12 Notes
    13 See also
    14 References
    15 Further reading
    16 External links

    Origin
    See also: Web brigades

    The group's office in Olgino, a historical district of Saint Petersburg, was exposed by Novaya Gazeta newspaper in 2013.[5] "Trolls from Olgino" and "Olgino's trolls" have become general terms denoting trolls who spread pro-Russian propaganda, not only necessarily those based at the office in Olgino.[6][7]

    Organizers
    Strategic

    Russian newspaper Vedomosti links the approved-by-Russian-authorities strategy of public consciousness manipulation through new media to Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy of the Vladimir Putin Presidential Administration of Russia.[8][9]

    Tactical

    External video Why are Russian trolls spreading online hoaxes in the U.S.?, PBS News Hour (PBS is a publicly funded American broadcaster), 8 June 2015 [10]

    RUSSIAN INVASION: Bots and trolls take over the web! RT (RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government), 3 June 2014[11]

    According to journalists’ investigations, the office in Olgino was named as Internet Research Agency Ltd. (Russian: ООО «Агентство интернет-исследований»).[5][12] The company was founded in the summer of 2013.[8]

    Journalists also point out that Alexey Soskovets, who had participated in the Russian youth political community, was directly connected to the office in Olgino. His company, North-Western Service Agency, won 17 or 18 (according to different sources) contracts for organizing celebrations, forums and sport competitions for authorities of Saint Petersburg. The agency was the only participant in half of those bids. In the summer of 2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of Seliger camp.[5][13]

    In 2014, according to Russian media, Internet Research Ltd. (Russian: ООО «Интернет исследования»), founded in March 2014, joined the agency's activity. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta claims this company to be a successor of Internet Research Agency Ltd.[14] Internet Research Ltd. is considered to be linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the holding company Concord Management and Consulting. The "Trolls of Olgino" from Saint Petersburg are considered to be his project. As of October 2014, the company belonged to Mikhail Bystrov, who had been the head of the police station at Moscow district of Saint Petersburg.[15]

    Russian media point out that according to documents, published by hackers from Anonymous International, Concord is directly involved with trolling administration through the agency. Researchers cite e-mail correspondence, in which Concord gives instructions to trolls and receives reports on accomplished work.[7] According to journalists' information, Concord organized banquets in the Kremlin and also cooperated with Voentorg and the Russian Ministry of Defence.[16]

    Despite links to Alexei Soskovets, Nadejda Orlova, deputy head of the Committee for Youth Policy in Saint Petersburg, disputed a connection between her institution and the trolling offices.[5]

    Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro, who extensively reported on the pro-Russian trolling activities in Finland, was in response targeted by an organized campaign of hate, disinformation and harassment.[17][18][19]

    Offices

    In Saint Petersburg
    In Olgino

    59°59′42.7″N 30°07′49.7″E

    As reported by Novaya Gazeta, in the end of August 2013, the following message appeared in social networks: "Internet operators wanted! Job at chic office in Olgino!!! (st. Staraya Derevnia), salary 25960 per month (USD$780 as of 2013). Task: posting comments at profile sites in the Internet, writing thematic posts, blogs, social networks. Reports via screenshots. Individual schedule <...> Payment every week, 1180 per shift (from 8.00 to 16.00, from 10.30 to 18.30, from 14.00 to 22.00). PAYMENTS EVERY WEEK AND FREE MEALS!!! Official job placement or according to contract (at will). Tuition possible."[5]

    As reported by media and former employees, the office in Olgino had existed and had been functioning since September 2013. It was situated in a white cottage,[6] 15 minutes by an underground railway from Staraya Derevnia station, opposite Olgino railway station.[5] Workplaces for troll-employees were placed in basement rooms.[13][16][20]

    Savushkina Street

    59°59′03.5″N 30°16′19.1″E

    According to Russian online newspaper DP.ru, several months before October 2014 the office moved from Olgino to a four-story building at 55 Savushkina Street.[15][16][21] As reported by journalists, the building is officially an uncompleted construction and stayed as such as of March 2015.[14]

    A New York Times investigative reporter was told that the Internet Research Agency had shortened its name to "Internet Research," and as of June 2015 had been asked to leave the 55 Savushkina Street location "a couple of months ago" because "it was giving the entire building a bad reputation." A possibly related organization, FAN or Federal News Agency, was located in the building. The New York Times article describes various experiences reported by former employees of the Internet Research Agency at the Savushkina Street location. It also describes several disruptive hoaxes in the US and Europe, such as the Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax, that may be attributable to the Internet Research Agency or similar Russian-based organizations.[22]

    In other cities

    Novaya Gazeta reported that, according to Alexey Soskovets, head of the office in Olgino, North-Western Service Agency was hiring employees for similar projects in Moscow and other cities in 2013.[5]
    Work organization

    More than 1000 paid bloggers and commenters reportedly worked only in a single building at Savushkina Street in 2015[23]. Many other employees work remotely. According to BuzzFeed, more than 600 people were generally employed in the trolls' office earlier, in June 2014.[3] Each commentator has a daily quota of 100 comments.[5]

    Trolls take shifts writing mainly in blogs on LiveJournal and Vkontakte, about subjects along the propaganda lines assigned. Included among the employees are artists who draw political cartoons.[14] They work for 12 hours every other two days. A blogger's quota is ten posts per shift, each post at least 750 characters. A commenter's norm is 126 comments and two posts per account. Each blogger is in charge of three accounts.[15][16][21]

    Employees at the Olgino office earned 25,000 Russian rubles per month; those at the Savushkina Street office earned approximately 40,000 Russian rubles.[15][21] In May 2014, Fontanka.ru described schemes for plundering the federal budget, intended to go toward the trolling organization.[7][8] In 2017 another whistleblower said that with bonuses and long working hours the salary can reach 80,000 rubles.[24]

    An employee interviewed by The Washington Post described the work:

    I immediately felt like a character in the book 1984 by George Orwell — a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white. Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line.[25]

    Trolling themes

    According to the testimonies of the investigative journalists and former employees of the offices, the main topics for posts included:[5][12][15][21]

    Criticism of Alexei Navalny, his sponsors, and Russian opposition in general;[14]
    Criticism of Ukraine's and the United States' foreign policies, and of the top politicians of these states;
    Praise for Vladimir Putin and the policy of the Russian Federation.
    Praise for and defense of Bashar al-Assad.[26]

    Journalists have written that themes of trolling were consistent with those of other Russian propaganda outlets in topics and timing. Technical points used by trolls were taken mainly from Russia Today content.[14][21]

    A 2015 BBC investigation identified the Olgino factory as the most likely producer of a September 2015 "Saiga 410K review" video where an actor posing as U.S. soldier shoots at a book that turns out to be a Quran, which sparked outrage. The BBC found among other irregularities that the soldier's uniform is not used by the U.S. military and is easily purchased in Russia, and that the actor filmed was most likely a barman from Saint Petersburg related to a troll factory employee.[27][28]

    The citizen-journalism site Bellingcat identified the team from Olgino as the real authors of a video attributed to the Azov Battalion in which masked soldiers threaten the Netherlands for organizing the referendum on the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.[29]

    Organized anti-Ukrainian campaign
    See also: Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis

    In the beginning of April 2014 there began an organized online campaign to shift public opinion in the Western world in a way that would be useful for Russian authorities regarding the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2014. Hacked and leaked documents from that time contain instructions for commenters posting at the websites of Fox News, The Huffington Post, TheBlaze, Politico, and WorldNetDaily. The requirement for the working hours for the trolls is also mentioned: 50 comments under news articles per day. Each blogger has to manage six accounts on Facebook, post at least three posts every day, and participate twice in the group discussions. Other employees have to manage 10 accounts on Twitter, publishing 50 tweets every day. Journalists concluded that Igor Osadchiy was a probable leader of the project, and the campaign itself was run by Internet Research Agency Ltd. Osadchiy denied his connection to the agency.[3][3]

    The company is also one of the main sponsors of an anti-Western exhibition Material Evidence.[30]

    In the beginning of 2016, Ukraine's state-owned news agency Ukrinform claimed to expose a system of bots in social networks, which called for violence against the Ukrainian government and for starting "The Third Maidan".[nb 1] They reported that the organizer of this system is the former anti-Ukrainian combatant Sergiy Zhuk from Donbass. He allegedly performed his internet activity from Vnukovo District in Moscow.[31]

    Reactions

    In March 2014, the Polish version of Newsweek expressed suspicion that Russia was employing people to "bombard" its website with pro-Russian comments on Ukraine-related articles.[32] Poland's governmental computer emergency response team later confirmed that pro-Russia commentary had flooded Polish internet portals at the start of the Ukrainian crisis.[33][34] German-language media websites were also flooded with pro-Russia comments in the spring of 2014.[35][36][37][38][39]

    In late May 2014, the hacker group Anonymous International began publishing documents received from hacked emails of Internet Researches Agency managers.[8][12]

    In May–June 2014, internet trolls invaded news media sites and massively posted pro-Russian comments in broken English.[40][8][41]

    In March 2015 a service enabling censorship of sources of anti-Ukrainian propaganda in social networks inside Ukraine was launched.[42][43]

    The United States Justice Department announced the indictment on 16 February 2018, of the Internet Research Agency while also naming more than a dozen individual suspects who allegedly worked there as part of the special counsel’s investigation into criminal interference with the 2016 election.[44]

    Assessments

    Russian bloggers Anton Nosik, Rustem Adagamov, and Dmitriy Aleshkovskiy have said that paid Internet-trolls don't change public opinion. Their usage is just a way to steal budget money.[7][8][12]

    Leonid Volkov, a politician working for Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, suggests that the point of sponsoring paid Internet trolling is to make the Internet so distasteful that ordinary people are not willing to participate.[22]

    The Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax in 11 September 2014, was the work of the Internet Research Agency, one of the trolling organizations linked to the Russian Government.[22]

    On 16 February 2018 the Internet Research Agency, along with 13 Russian individuals and two other Russian organizations, was indicted following an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with charges stemming from "impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of government."[45]

    Earlier, based on the documents published by Anonymous international, Concord holding company was linked to the funding of several media outlets in Ukraine and Russia, including Kharkiv News Agency,[12] News of Neva, Newspaper About Newspapers, Business Dialog, and Journalist Truth.[7]

    In September 2017 Facebook said that ads had been "geographically targeted".[46][47] Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election, the agency had purchased advertisements on the website for US$100,000, 25% of which were geographically targeted to the U.S.[48] Facebook's chief security officer said that the ads "appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum".[46][47]

    Per a 17 October 2017 BuzzFeed News report, the IRA duped American activists into taking real action via protests and self-defense trainings in what would seem to be a further attempt to exploit racial grievances.[49]
    Lawsuit

    In May 2015, a trolling company employee Lyudmila Savchuk in Saint Petersburg sued her employer for labor violations,[50] seeking to disclose its activities. Ivan Pavlov from human rights defending initiative Team 29 represented Savchuk, and the defendant "troll-factory" agreed to pay Savchuk her withheld salaries and to restore her job.[51]
    Indictments

    The individuals indicted by the Washington, D.C. grand jury in February 2018 are "Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov, Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik, Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova, Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva, Sergey Pavlovich Polozov, Maria Anatolyevna Bovda, Robert Sergeyevich Bovda, Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov, Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev, Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko, Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin and Vladimir Venkov.[52][53]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
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    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    I decided to look this up with so much balther about it. There's nothing here but influencing opinions. That is not illegal in the United States, and hopefully, never will be.

    Ironically, Donald Trump understands this better than a lot of Americans, because he's the only one so far willing to stand up against it, not the speech itself, the laws and agreements that result from it. Americans have been the serious victims of blather from China, Great Britain, Mexico and so many others who have stolen our trade, stolen our jobs, stolen our money. Russia has never done that. So why are we attacking Russia for what does not harm US and call them our enemy, while letting all the other scum bag countries get away with murder while stealing US blind, and call them our friends?!

    Americans really, really, really need to catch up fast on the truth and eality of Russia.
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    Rosenstein says 12 Russian intel officers indicted in special counsel's probe

    --------------------------------


    All of Robert Mueller’s indictments and plea deals in the Russia investigation so far

    That we know of.

    By Andrew Prokopandrew@vox.com
    Updated
    Jul 13, 2018, 1:47pm EDT


    With a new indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers filed this Friday, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of.

    That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Five of these people (including three former Trump aides) have already pleaded guilty.


    None of the charges against Americans or Trump advisers so far have directly alleged that they worked with Russia to interfere with the campaign.


    Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to making false statements about their contacts with Russians to investigators. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were hit with tax, money laundering and other charges that relate to their work for the government of Ukraine and a Russia-affiliated Ukrainian political party.


    Other reported focuses of Mueller’s investigation — such as potential obstruction of justice by the Trump administration — have not resulted in any indictments yet.


    Also, it’s possible that there are more charges we don’t know about — Papadopoulos’s arrest last July was kept secret for three months after it happened.

    Here, though, are the indictments and plea deals that are public.


    The full list of known indictments and plea deals in Mueller’s probe


    1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
    2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
    3) Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, was indicted in October in Washington, DC on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and false statements — all related to his work for Ukrainian politicians before he joined the Trump campaign. He’s pleaded not guilty on all counts. Then, in February, Mueller filed a new case against him in Virginia, with tax, financial, and bank fraud charges.
    4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But in February he agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
    5-20) 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companieswere indicted on conspiracy charges, with some also being accused of identity theft. The charges related to a Russian propaganda effort designed to interfere with the 2016 campaign. The companies involved are the Internet Research Agency, often described as a “Russian troll farm,” and two other companies that helped finance it. The Russian nationals indicted include 12 of the agency’s employees and its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
    21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
    22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
    23) Konstantin Kilimnik: This longtime business associate of Manafort and Gates, who’s currently based in Russia, was charged alongside Manafort with attempting to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses in Manafort’s pending case this year.
    24-35) 12 Russian GRU officers: These officers of Russia’s military intelligence service were charged with crimesrelated to the hacking and leaking of leading Democrats’ emails in 2016.

    Two ex-Trump advisers lied to the FBI about their contacts with Russians


    So far, no Trump associates have been specifically charged with any crimes relating to helping Russia interfere with the 2016 election.

    The closest we’ve come to that is that both Papadopoulos and Flynn both now admit that they lied to the FBI about their contacts with people connected to the Russian government. (Papadopoulos’s contacts took place before the election, and Flynn’s after it.)


    Papadopoulos:
    Back in April 2016, Papadopoulos got a tipfrom a foreign professor he understood to have Russian government connections that the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” He then proceeded to have extensive contacts with the professor and a Russian woman, during which he tried to plan a Trump campaign trip to Russia.


    But when the FBI interviewed Papadopoulos about all this in January 2017, he repeatedly lied about what happened, he now admits. So he was arrested in July, and later agreed to plead guilty to a false statements charge and start cooperating with Mueller’s probe.


    Flynn
    : In December 2016, during the transition, Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions that President Barack Obama had just placed on Russia, and about a planned United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements.


    But when FBI agents interviewed him about all this in January 2017, Flynn lied to them about what his talks with Kislyak entailed, he now admits. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to a false statements charge and began cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.


    Both Papadopoulos and Flynn may now be providing Mueller’s team with information that could incriminate others in Trump’s orbit. But we haven’t seen the fruits of their cooperation just yet.


    Several Russians were indicted in connection with a propaganda effort


    Then, this February, Mueller’s team indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies in connection with alleged interference with the 2016 campaign.

    The indictments’ main emphasis is on the propaganda efforts of one Russian group in particular: the Internet Research Agency. That group’s operations — which included social media posts, online ads, and organization of rallies in the US — were, the indictment alleges, often (but not exclusively) aimed at denigrating Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy and supporting Donald Trump’s.


    Specifically indicted were:



    • The Internet Research Agency itself
    • Two shell companies involved in financing the agency (Concord Management and Concord Catering)
    • The alleged financier of the agency, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
    • Twelve people who allegedly worked for the agency (Mikhail Bystrov, Mikhail Burchik, Aleksandra Krylova, Anna Bogacheva, Sergey Polozov, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Dzheykhun Ogly, Vadim Podkopaev, Gleb Vasilchenko, Irina Kaverzina, and Vladimir Venkov)



    The specific charges in the case include one broad “conspiracy to defraud the United States” count, but the rest are far narrower — one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and six counts of identity theft. It is highly unlikely that the indicted Russian individuals will ever come to the US to face trial, but one company involved, Concord Catering, is fighting back in court.


    No Americans have been charged with being witting participants in this Russian election interference effort.

    However, one American, Richard Pinedo of California, pleaded guilty to an identity fraud charge, seemingly because he sold bank account numbers created with stolen identities to the Russians. Pinedo agreed to cooperate with the probe as part of his plea deal.


    Twelve Russian intelligence officers were indicted in connection with email hackings and leaks


    In July, Mueller charged 12 officers of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, with crimes committed to the high-profile hacking and leaking of leading Democrats’ emails during the 2016 campaign.

    Specifically indicted
    are:



    • Viktor Netyksho, Boris Antonov, Dmitriy Badin, Ivan Yermakov, Aleksey Lukashev, Sergey Moirgachev, Nikolay Kozacheck, Pavel Yershov, Artem Malyshev — all of the GRU’s “Unit 26165,” which Mueller alleges “had primary responsibility for hacking the DCCC and DNC, as well as the email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign” like John Podesta.
    • Aleksandr Osadchuk, Aleksey Potemkin, and Anatoliy Kovalev of the GRU’s “Unit 74455,” which Mueller says “assisted in the release of stolen documents,” “the promotion of those releases,” “and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media accounts operated by the GRU.”



    Two other ex-Trump advisers are facing charges related to their past work for Ukraine


    Then there are former Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. The pair were indicted by Mueller’s team indicted last October in Washington, and Mueller piled on yet more charges against them in Virginia this February.

    The charges against the pair related to nearly a decade of foreign work they did for the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian politicians before they joined Trump’s campaign.


    Manafort and Gates allegedly “acted as unregistered agents” for the Ukrainians, generating “tens of millions of dollars in income,” which they then “laundered” through “scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts,” per their indictment. They were also accused of failing to appropriately disclose their foreign work and foreign assets, and of committing tax, financial, and bank fraud crimes, some of which took place as recently as last year.


    The specific charges Manafort is currently facing are:



    • 7 counts in Washington, DC: One count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal, making false and misleading Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) statements, a false statements charge in connection with FARA, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
    • 18 counts in Virginia: 5 counts of filing false income tax returns, 4 counts of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts, and 9 counts of bank fraud or bank conspiracy



    Manafort did his foreign work for Ukraine’s pro-Russia political faction, but so far, it is not clear if these charges have any connection to the topic of Russian interference with the 2016 campaign. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.


    Gates, meanwhile, has since agreed to a plea deal in which he’ll cooperate with Mueller’s team.

    Accordingly, the many charges originally brought against him were dropped, except for two he pleaded guilty to — one conspiracy to defraud the United States charge, and a false statements charge. (With the latter, Gates admittedlying to Mueller’s team during a meeting this February.)


    An associate of Gates’s also pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI



    Screenshot of van der Zwaan’s page on Skadden Arps circa mid-2017 Skadden Arps/Wayback Machine

    Finally, the probe into Manafort and Gates’s Ukrainian work has ensnared one other person so far: Alex van der Zwaan.
    Van der Zwaan was a lawyer for the London office of the New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

    The son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, he worked with Manafort and Gates on behalf of Ukraine’s government in 2012, to write a report defending the government’s prosecution of a former prime minister.


    In November 2017, Mueller’s investigators interviewed van der Zwaan about his Ukrainian work. But according to the charging document, van der Zwaan:



    • Lied about when his last communications with Gates and another unnamed person took place
    • Lied about deleting and not providing relevant emails to the special counsel’s team



    On February 20, 2018, van der Zwaan pleaded guilty to a false statements charge. He has since served a brief prison sentence and been deported.


    Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort associate, has been charged with obstruction of justice


    Finally, Konstantin Kilimnik — who worked with Manafort in Ukraine and is now based in Russia — was charged alongside Manafort with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, in June.

    Mueller argues that, earlier in 2018, Manafort and Kilimnik worked together to contact potential witnesses against Manafort and encourage them to give false testimony. He argues that this is attempted witness tampering, and qualifies as obstruction of justice.


    The alleged tampering relates to the “Hapsburg group”— a group of former senior European politicians Manafort paid to advocate for Ukraine’s interests.


    Both Manafort and Kilimnik tried to contact witnesses to get them to claim the Hapsburg group only operated in Europe (where US foreign lobbying laws don’t apply). But Mueller says there’s ample evidence that the group did work in the US too, and the witnesses thought Manafort and Kilimnik were trying to get them to commit perjury.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...nts-grand-jury
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