Obama WH Counsel and Clinton-Linked Lawyer Could Be First DEMOCRAT Charged Under Mueller-Probe

Fox News reported on the story:

Former Obama White House Counsel and Clinton-linked attorney Greg Craig may soon be charged by the Justice Department for engaging in illegal unregistered overseas lobbying, in a case initially probed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- a development that would make him the first Democrat to face prosecution amid the long-running Russia investigation.

The case centers on lobbying work that Craig performed in 2012 for the Russian-backed president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, while Craig was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Craig allegedly never registered as a foreign agent under a U.S. law known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires lobbyists to declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders, governments or their political parties.

FARA violations were only rarely prosecuted until Mueller took aim at Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, for his lobbying work in Ukraine. Manafort, who connected Craig with Yanukovych, has been convicted on numerous bank and tax fraud charges, and was separately accused of FARA violations as well. He was sentencedearlier this month to approximately seven years in prison.

Craig left Skadden last year as his work with Manafort became public. In January, Skadden agreed to cooperate with the DOJ's registration requirements and paid $4.6 million in a settlement to avoid a criminal prosecution. "We have learned much from this incident and are taking steps to prevent anything similar from happening again,” the firm said in a statement at the time.

Biz Pac Review had the following to say:

A high-profile Democrat attorney who worked for former President Barack Obama may soon be charged by federal prosecutors for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the same act that was used to justify some of the charges against President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Attorney Gregory B. Craig, who served as Obama’s White House Counsel from 2009 to 2010 and as then-President Bill Clinton’s director of policy planning from 1997 to 1998, never disclosed work he’d performed in 2012 on behalf of then-Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who as of 2019 is currently in exile in Russia and wanted by the Ukrainian government for treason.

While a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Craig was hired by Manafort to write a report on Yanukovych’s behalf.

“Mr. Manafort arranged for the firm to be paid more than $5.2 million in 2012 and 2013, primarily from a Ukrainian oligarch,” The New York Times reported Monday.

“In exchange, a team led by Mr. Craig was to produce a report that Mr. Manafort intended to use to quell Western criticism of the prosecution and jailing by Mr. Yanukovych’s government of one of his rivals, the former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, and to train Ukrainian prosecutors handling matters related to the case.”

Craig and his partners at Skadden Arps performed this work without registering as foreign agents under FARA. While the Justice Department of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch briefly looked into the matter in 2013, it dropped the issue in 2014 after Craig, an associate of Obama, argued that his work for Yanukovych didn’t apply to FARA.

The issue then disappeared until 2017, when special counsel Robert Mueller began digging into Manafort’s past lobbying efforts.

“The special counsel had subpoenaed or requested documents from Skadden Arps and two lobbying firms recruited by Mr. Manafort’s team to help build support for Mr. Yanukovych’s government, and Mr. Mueller’s investigators had interviewed people who worked with all three firms, including Mr. Craig,” the Times noted.

Much like in the case of Manafort, the special counsel eventually transferred the investigations into Skadden Arps and the two other lobbying firms (one of which is Tony Podesta’s Podesta Group) to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Fast forward to this past January, when the prosecutors in Manhattan transferred the Skadden Arps case to prosecutors in Washington.

These same prosecutors wound up reaching a settlement with the law firm. Skadden Arps agreed to register retroactively with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of Ukraine and to pay a $4.6 million fine, the same amount that the firm was paid for its consulting work.

Moreover, Skadden Arps reportedly threw Craig under the bus.

“The settlement accused Mr. Craig of working with Mr. Manafort to hide the funding from the Ukrainian oligarch for Skadden Arps’s work, and of making ‘false and misleading’ statements to other partners at the firm and the Justice Department,” the Times noted.

It was reportedly these false statements that led Lynch’s DOJ to drop the matter in 2014 and that may now lead to federal prosecutors slamming Craig with the hammer of justice.

So, Greg Craig has been slipping around facing up to his actions for far too long. 

It's time now for justice to be served.

Unless, of course, he is let off the hook, like many other Democrats have been for other charges (looking at you, Hillary...)