Trump Aide Rick Gates Communicated With Former Russian Spy Before Election

  • Gates told lawyer that Russian was ex-intelligence, U.S. says
  • Disclosure came before sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan
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A month before the 2016 presidential election, a campaign aide to Donald Trump directly communicated with a man he knew was a onetime Russian spy, according to a court filing by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Rick Gates, the campaign aide, told an attorney for a U.S. law firm that a Russian national they worked with in Ukraine was a former military intelligence officer, according to the filing late Tuesday in Washington federal court.