Mueller team adds prosecutor specializing in cyber crime

Ryan Dickey, a veteran cyber crime prosecutor, has joined special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators. 

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday that Dickey was assigned to Mueller’s investigation in early November from the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. 

The Washington Post first reported that Dickey had joined Mueller’s team. 

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Dickey is the first known veteran prosecutor of cyber crimes to join the special counsel investigation, which is examining Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Mueller took over the law enforcement investigation in May, after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. His team mostly consists of white-collar crime prosecutors and investigators.

Computer crimes, however, play a prominent role in Mueller’s investigation, particularly because of cyber breaches that led to the release of a number of Democrats’ emails during the 2016 campaign. 

The special counsel’s probe has so far led to the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Richard Gates, who are facing charges of tax evasion, money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents, among other allegations.

The investigation has also led to guilty pleas from two former Trump campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn, who also served as the president’s first national security adviser. Both admitted to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian representatives. 

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or coordination with the Russians, and has called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt” that has cast a shadow over his tenure in the White House.