Indicted Atty Greg Craig

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_B._Craig

1. Gregory Bestor Craig is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2010.


2. Craig attended Yale Law School, where he was a member of the same class as Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.


3. In 1981, Craig was a member of the team that represented John W. Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan; Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity.


4. Craig also defended Ted Kennedy's nephew William Kennedy Smith on charges of assault; William Kennedy Smith had earlier been acquitted on rape charges in 1991.


5. Craig worked in the White House during the Clinton administration from 1998 to 1999, holding the title of assistant to the President and special counsel.


6. Craig served as assistant to the President and special counsel in the White House of President Bill Clinton, where he directed the team defending Clinton against impeachment.


7. Ruff, Kendall, and Craig were three members of a five-member team of lawyers defending the president; the other two were Cheryl D. Mills and Dale Bumpers


8. During the Elián González affair in 2000, Craig represented Juan Miguel Gonzáles, the Cuban father of six-year-old Elián González, in an international child custody dispute involving "the volatile field of Cuban-American relations" which ended with the boy's return to Cuba.


9. In summer 2008, during the presidential campaign, Obama decided to support legislation (specifically, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless NSA wiretapping program. In his role as an advisor to the Obama campaign, Craig defended Obama's reversal, and said that Obama "concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire."[24] This was incorrect, as FISA has no expiration date.


10. In late summer and fall 2008, Craig, a skilled trial lawyer, assumed the role of John McCain in Barack's preparations for the presidential debates.


11. Gregory Craig is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2010.


11. Craig's ouster following the "whisper campaign" against him angered his friends and supporters inside and outside the White House, who viewed him as a scapegoat. Obama's handling of Craig's resignation was also criticized in the media. Steve Clemons called it "the assassination of Greg Craig" and said that "the White House counsel was done in by a scurrilous leaks campaign."


12. In 2011, Craig initially represented former Senator John Edwards, a former presidential and vice presidential candidate, in the federal prosecution of Edwards on charges of illegally using campaign funds to cover up his affair with Rielle Hunter.[40][41] Edwards was subsequently acquitted


13. Later in 2018, NBC and CNN reported that following a referral from Mueller's office, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York was investigating Craig and others, including ex-lobbyist Tony Podesta and former Republican U.S. Representative Vin Weber, as part of a broader investigation into the activities of Paul Manafort.


14. He was indicted in 2019 on charges of lying to federal prosecutors about the business work he did in Ukraine with Paul Manafort.