WASHINGTON The criminal information document released by special counsel Robert Mueller ahead of Trump campaign aide Rick Gates guilty plea on Friday contains prominent references to a member of Congress who met in 2013 with future Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and another lobbyist.

HuffPost has identified that member as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a loudly pro-Russia lawmaker who has drawn the attention of Mueller and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller has not yet interviewed Rohrabacher, the congressmans spokesman told HuffPost on Friday in a message that also confirmed the 2013 meeting with Manafort. But Muellers team wanted to interview Rohrabacher as of late last year, according to news reports, and the criminal information released in advance of Gates plea suggests they were asking about Rohrabacher recently. The congressman has already been interviewed by the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Gates has told a court that he lied to federal investigators on Feb. 1, 2018, about his knowledge of the meeting between Rohrabacher, Manafort and lobbyist Vin Weber when he falsely claimed he did not know Ukraine was discussed. Ukraine is one of the top foreign policy concerns of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Manafort spent years working for Ukrainian politicians close to Moscow. And Rohrabacher was one of only a few U.S. lawmakers to oppose American assistance to a new government in Ukraine established in 2014 after protests against Putins allies in that country.

Rohrabacher has become notorious for being what The New York Times calls an apologist for Putin. Theres two people I think Putin pays : Rohrabacher and Trump, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said during a 2016 meeting of the GOPs top brass, according to a secret recording shared with The Washington Post. (McCarthy later said he was joking.) Russian intelligence officials gave Rohrabacher a code name because they viewed him as a valuable source, The New York Times revealed last year.

Rohrabacher maintains that he is simply motivated by a sincere desire for better relations between Washington and Moscow. In a 2014 Twitter exchange , the congressman wrote, Have known Manafort 35 years. As in all matters, I make up mind based on truth & right, not donations or even friendship.

Officials speaking with The New York Times last year said they did not believe Rohrabacher was actively working with the Russians.

As both chair of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee covering Europe and a former anti-Soviet hawk, the congressman argues that the two countries with the worlds largest nuclear arsenals need to get along and that Americans should have more sympathy for Russias priorities and its fears of Western encirclement.