Vin Weber returns to lobbying firm Mercury

Former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.) will return to the lobbying firm Mercury, which he left amid former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Weber confirmed to The Hill.

Weber, a partner at Mercury, resigned at the end of August, claiming that the investigation was a distraction for him and the firm’s work.

Mercury was hired by President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort in 2012 to lobby for a think tank run by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Manafort, who is now in jail, pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), among other crimes. Mercury and the now-defunct Podesta Group didn’t originally register as foreign agents either but did so in 2017 once the investigation started.

Rick Gates, a former deputy Trump campaign chairman who was sentenced to 45 days in jail on Tuesday, told Mueller that he lied to Mercury, which has said lawyers advised it not to register under FARA for its work with the think tank.

The Justice Department stopped investigating Weber and Tony Podesta of the Podesta Group in September.