The prosecution and defense painted starkly different pictures of how Obama White House counsel Greg Craig handled a report involving Ukraine, Paul Manafort, and the media in their opening statements at Craig’s trial Thursday.
Craig is charged with misleading investigators about his role in promoting the report at the behest of the Kremlin-linked government in Ukraine regarding the country’s controversial prosecution of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over allegations of corruption, in a case spun off from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The charge relates to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which mandates anyone working on behalf of a foreign government to register with the Department of Justice.
The government’s case against Craig focuses on the public relations work performed by the Democratic attorney and the law firm he worked for — Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom — for Ukraine in 2012. Manafort, who headed Trump’s campaign in 2016 only to be found guilty of tax and bank fraud and other violations by Mueller, worked alongside right-hand man Rick Gates to assist President Viktor Yanukovych. Skadden and Craig were roped into one of their efforts.
The Democratic attorney maintains it was an independent report.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors Thursday that Craig “schemed, falsified, and concealed” important facts from the investigators who enforce the foreign agents law in 2013. Gaston said whether Craig was required to register under the law was irrelevant because it’s illegal to lie to investigators.
Defense attorney William Taylor downplayed the allegations, saying this was just about “words” and not about stealing, assault, or bribery. But after opening statements ended and the jury stepped out, Judge Amy Berman Jackson reprimanded Taylor, saying false statements to investigators are crimes. Berman Jackson also warned the defense about hinting at jury nullification — when a jury finds a defendant not guilty because they disagree with the law — and said she didn’t want to hear that argument again.
In open court, the prosecutor said Craig’s decisions that led to his prosecution fall into three chapters: those related to the report itself, the public relations rollout of the report, and how he handled being investigated.
Craig initially sought advice about whether he’d need to register under the law if he took the job writing the report, since he didn’t want to register as an agent of Ukraine, Gaston said. A colleague advised him writing a report would be fine, but doing public relations work would not, but Craig “did not follow that advice.”
Gaston also alleged Craig didn’t want to register because it could reveal “non-public facts,” including more than $4 million in payments Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk sent to Skadden via Manafort’s account in Cyprus.
Craig was intimately involved in coordinating public relations for the report, Gaston said, going so far as to work with Jonathan Hawker, in public relations at FTI Consulting, as well as Manafort and Gates to promote the report’s version of events related to corruption and prosecution of the country’s former prime minister — a version the prosecutor said was sympathetic to the pro-Russia government. Gaston said Craig called and emailed a New York Times reporter to offer him the report, ultimately hand-delivering a copy of it to the reporter’s home and dropping it in his screen door.
When investigators saw media coverage of the report and the role Skadden played, Gaston said unit chief Heather Hunt questioned Craig on if he should’ve registered. Gaston alleged Craig intentionally concealed the facts the investigators wanted.
Craig’s attorney, however, said Craig was not coordinating with the Ukrainian government on the public relations effort, but was instead speaking with the media to allay his fears Ukraine was attempting to whitewash the report. Taylor said Ukraine tried delaying the release of the report, which included some critiques of the way Yanukovych prosecuted Tymoshenko, and Manafort, Gates, and Hawker wanted to put a positive, misleading spin on it through talking points, but Craig wanted no part and worked against those efforts by speaking with journalists.
“He could not trust FTI to tell the truth, so he was even more determined that the New York Times get it right,” Taylor said. “Mr. Craig did not think correcting the ‘fake news’ meant he was working for Ukraine.”
Taylor said Hawker, who recently retroactively registered under FARA, would likely be a witness “with an arm’s length relationship with the truth” and said Gates has already been convicted for lying.
Craig never knowingly misled or deceived the investigators about his contacts with the media, Taylor said.
Witnesses for the prosecution also began testifying Thursday. The case is expected to last approximately two weeks, and Craig faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Skadden settled with the federal government in January following a FARA investigation and relinquished $4.6 million — the same amount the company was paid by Ukraine for its report.
