Greg Craig (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
The trial of Greg Craig, former White House Counsel in the Obama administration and former Skadden attorney, is a bit pointless, because all of the important matters have been decided. It doesn’t seem pointless because there’s a lot of shadiness and Eastern European names and secret Harvard Club meetings floating around. But the thing Craig is actually being charged with is easily the most boring facet of the entire fact pattern. So… for those who haven’t been following along, let’s talk about that fact pattern first:
In 2012, Paul Manafort, then working on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych commissioned then-Skadden attorney Greg Craig to write a report. Yanukovych had launched a corruption trial against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was a political rival. Tymoshenko was convicted and imprisoned. Yanukovych wanted to burnish his image in the west, so they wanted to show that the trial against Tymoshenko was something legitimate and not, you know, the other thing. Craig and Skadden accepted. Craig wrote a memo to file calling the evidence against Tymoshenko “virtually non-existent.” But when the report came out, Skadden more or less backed Yanukovych’s version of events. Craig engaged in public relations campaign to support the report, including delivering a copy of it to the home of a New York Times reporter before the report was released publicly. Manafort was thrilled, sending an email to Craig “You are ‘THE MAN.’” A contract with the Ukrainian government initially indicated that Skadden was to be paid $12,000 for its work (which, LOL, a Skadden partner wouldn’t spend six minutes punching you in the face for $12,000), but in fact Skadden was paid roughly $4.6 million for the report, largely funneled through Ukrainian oligarchs. Craig did not register as a foreign agent for his production of the report or the media work he did on Yanukovych’s behalf.
See? Isn’t that a GREAT fact pattern? You’ve got corruption, political prisoners, Manafort’s stupid emails, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and a memo-to-file somebody actually read!
Unfortunately, none of that is really at issue in this case. After these dealings were exposed through the Robert Mueller investigation, the Justice Department went after Skadden. Skadden settled for the purely coincidental amount of… $4.6 million. Then Justice turned its eyes towards Craig. But Craid wasn’t even charged with failure to register, because (pro-tip, Congress) FARA is a distressingly vague and poorly written statute. Judge Amy Berman Jackson already dismissed one charge about false statements. Manafort is in jail. Yanukovych is in exile. Tymoshenko is out of jail and hopefully living her best life. Nearly everything here has been solved.
The only lingering issue is whether Craig lied to or materially mislead the Justice Department when they were investigating whether he should have registered as a foreign agent. That’s the charge. That’s what Craig is on trial for. Did Craig get too cute with a Justice Department functionary?
Which, I’m sorry, but I hit the snooze button on that. The man is out here getting Skadden to whitewash the imprisonment of political enemies, getting Skadden paid by Russian oligarchs, and having bro-emails with someone we now know to be one of the shadiest men on the planet, and I’m supposed to get up because he maybe wasn’t fully forthcoming to a rando Justice Department official?
Whatever. The prosecution rested its case yesterday, after calling 15 witnesses, many of them Skadden or former-Sakdden attorneys, as well as Rick Gates, Manafort’s right-hand man. The prosecution closed with Heather Hunt, who was Justice’s investigator in the Craig matter. She testified that she was not made aware of the public relations strategy between Craig and Manafort. She said that had she been aware: “It would have been very relevant to my inquiry.” Whoever is writing this dialog needs to be fired before they start working on the movie.
Craig took the stand today in his own defense. Usually, that’s a terrible strategy. But Craig is an accomplished trial lawyer and, more importantly, who the f**k cares? From Politico:
Within minutes of being sworn in Wednesday, Craig denied the core allegation in the case: that he lied to and misled the head of Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration Act unit, Heather Hunt.
“I did not lie to Ms. Hunt or the FARA unit,” Craig said, under questioning from defense attorney William Taylor. “I did not lie or conceal from the FARA unit.”
Craig contends he told Hunt what was relevant, didn’t tell her things that weren’t relevant, and conducted the public relations roll out to make sure that Skadden looked good, not Yanukovych.
I mean, I don’t believe that for a second but… it’s an argument. I’ve never known Skadden to be that desperate to get positive coverage in the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal, maybe. But not the NYT.
If convicted, the charge carries a five-year maximum, but Craig won’t get that. He’d get the lightest sentence or maybe just probation, since he’d be a first time offender. And, of course, Craig could easily be acquitted because his defense only sounds stupid if you are looking at the bigger fact pattern, and that might be hard for some jurors to follow.
Jury deliberations are expected to start after Labor Day. Skadden is so much more boring than Jones Day.
Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig takes the stand in his criminal trial [Politico]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.