Ex-Obama White House counsel charged with lying in foreign lobbying probe

WASHINGTON -- Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig was indicted Thursday on charges of making false statements and concealing information in a federal foreign lobbying investigation intersecting with the Russia probe.

Craig, 74, was charged in a two-count indictment accusing him of willfully concealing material facts from the Justice Department about work he performed for the Ukrainian government. The indictment, announced by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, came a day after Craig's lawyers said he expected to be charged in the probe spun off from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

In a statement, his attorneys, William Taylor and William Murphy, said, "Mr. Craig is not guilty of any charge and the government's stubborn insistence on prosecuting Mr. Craig is a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion." The lawyers said the Justice Department's national security division pushed to indict Craig despite federal prosecutors in New York declining to bring charges, an assertion that couldn't immediately be verified. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment.

Craig's indictment is part of a Justice Department crackdown on unregistered foreign lobbying and consulting. Federal prosecutors in New York have been investigating two prominent Washington lobbying firms in a similar probe, and Justice Department officials in Washington have been increasingly willing to prosecute people they believe intentionally conceal their lobbying work from the government.

The scrutiny of Craig stems from an investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his work on behalf of a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. The charges come about three months after Craig's former law firm agreed to pay more than $4.6 million and publicly acknowledge it failed to register with the government for its work for the Ukraine.

The civil settlement with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP laid much of the blame for the firm's conduct on Craig, who was a senior partner.

Craig, who is set to appear in federal court today, is a prominent Washington attorney and was the first White House counsel to former President Barack Obama. In private practice, his clients have included former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was charged in a leaks investigation. He also led President Bill Clinton's White House legal team during his impeachment proceedings and defended Clinton during his Senate trial.

The work drawing the Justice Department's attention occurred in 2012, when Craig and Skadden were hired by the Ukrainian government to write a report on the prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister. Tymoshenko was a political opponent of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was a longtime Manafort patron.

The report was billed as independent, but critics have said it whitewashed a politically motivated prosecution.

In its settlement earlier this year, Skadden acknowledged it participated in a public relations campaign for the report and should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. The firm also acknowledged it had been paid $4.6 million for the report and not just $12,000, as the Ukrainian government had said at the time.