Rick Gates remained in touch with an associate linked to Russia’s GRU intelligence service late in the campaign, the court filing said, and communicated with him in a “series of calls” in September and October 2016. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Mueller: Rick Gates spoke to person with Russian spy ties in late 2016

Rick Gates, a senior official on President Donald Trump’s campaign, was in contact in September and October 2016 with an associate who the FBI assessed had ongoing ties to Russia's intelligence services, special counsel Robert Mueller said in a new court filing.

In a federal court filing Tuesday, Mueller described the associate of Gates and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort as “Person A” and said Gates was aware of the person’s links to the GRU intelligence service. The individual has been identified in news reports as Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate from Manafort’s days working on behalf of a Kremlin-aligned Ukrainian political party.


Kilimnik’s suspected ties to Russian intelligence have been established, but it was not previously known whether those links continued into 2016. Manafort reportedly met with him at least twice that year, including in August, during a crucial stretch of the campaign.

The filing shed little light on whether Americans aided Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, but it shows that prosecutors believe a top Trump official remained in contact with a Russian intelligence-linked operative well into the campaign.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents assisting the Special Counsel’s Office assess that Person A has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016,” Mueller said in the filing.

Manafort — who is fighting charges from Mueller that relate to his work prior to joining Trump — left the campaign in August 2016 after reports about questionable payments he received from his work related to Ukraine. But Gates remained aboard through the campaign and transition. He has since pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in order to avoid trial over charges similar to those against Manafort.

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The filing Tuesday, however, related to a separate case involving attorney Alexander van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in relation to a 2012 project connected with Ukraine.

In the filing, Mueller said Gates told van der Zwaan that Person A was a former intelligence officer with Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the GRU.

Gates remained in touch with Person A late in the campaign, Mueller said, and communicated with the associate and van der Zwaan in a “series of calls” in September and October 2016.

Mueller described those calls — and van der Zwaan’s subsequent misstatements to investigators about them — as “material to the special counsel’s office.” He recommended a jail sentence that would allow van der Zwaan to return to his home in the United Kingdom in time for his wife — the daughter of a prominent Russian oligarch — to give birth in August.

