Was Greg Craig’s prosecution political?

The grumbling was by no means removed from the surface throughout Greg Craig’s three-week-long trial for allegedly scheming to deceive the U.S. government about his lobbying work related to Ukraine — was his prosecution the product of politics?

After the jury made short work of the federal government’s case Thursday — taking lower than five hours to acquit the previous lawyer for two Democratic presidents of the only felony cost he confronted — the speak from Craig’s camp concerning the case being unjust turned extra blunt, though his defense attorneys still shied away from explicitly complaining that politics played a task within the determination to charge him.

“The query that you have to ask isn't why this jury acquitted Greg Craig, but why the Department of Justice brought this case towards an harmless man in the first place,” defense lawyer William Taylor Jr. informed reporters gathered outdoors the courthouse.

“Why, after the USA Lawyer for the Southern District of New York rejected this prosecution, did this Division of Justice determine it needed to hound this man and his household with out any evidence and with none function?” the protection lawyer requested. “It’s a tragedy. It’s a disgrace. I’m glad it’s over.”

After framing the query for journalists, Taylor refused to answer it or elaborate. Nevertheless, some of Craig’s buddies have been more direct in arguing that political issues might have led the Justice Department to convey a case it wound up dropping.

“This was within the arms of political individuals,” stated longtime Craig pal Stuart Taylor Jr., an writer, lawyer and former New York Occasions reporter. “There’s a whole lot of politics happening at the Justice Division nowadays. Which may properly be part of it.”

Taylor did not argue that prosecutors singled Craig out because he was a Democrat, however the Craig ally stated the choice to charge the former Obama White Home counsel might have been a misguided try and make former particular counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — which spurred the fees — look extra evenhanded in the face of withering complaints from President Donald Trump that it was a political jihad led by Democratic partisans.

“Donald Trump won't be dissatisfied by the decision to attempt to make a felony out of Greg Craig,” Taylor stated.

The same thought occurred to at the very least some on the jury, in accordance with one juror interviewed by POLITICO simply after the verdict.

“It’s potential they needed to convey something towards a Democrat,” stated Willie Wilson, 28. “I don’t assume that can't be considered.”

Wilson, a commodities broker, stated some jurors discussed that risk, but only after they returned a verdict.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department declined to comment on Taylor’s remarks or Craig’s acquittal. Following a not-guilty verdict, federal prosecutors sometimes say little or nothing, in accordance with Justice Department policies.

The case towards Craig did endure from apparent weaknesses, like a scarcity of any written report of a key Oct. 9, 2013, assembly at which, prosecutors stated, Craig lied to or misled members of Justice’s Overseas Agent Registration Act unit about his work.

The prosecution referred to as to the stand three eyewitnesses — the unit’s prime lawyer on the time, Heather Hunt, and two members of Craig’s regulation firm, Lawrence Spiegel and Kenneth Gross.

None was capable of recite any particular words stated at the session and a minimum of a part of Gross’s testimony was useful to the defendant. Craig additionally took the stand in his own protection and stated he did not mislead or mislead anyone in the course of the meeting.

The defense additionally referred to as four character witnesses for Craig, who portrayed him as virtually saintly in his devotion to honesty and the highest requirements of the legal career. And U.S. District Courtroom Decide Amy Berman Jackson gave jurors an instruction that character alone might be adequate to acquit Craig by creating an inexpensive doubt about whether or not he would have intentionally broken the regulation.

Nevertheless, jurors who spoke to reporters after the verdict was returned Wednesday afternoon indicated that it was a better call for Craig than the outrage mustered by the defense may recommend.

Two men who served on the jury stated the relatively fast acquittal was triggered by a technical authorized situation: a statute of limitations-related time-frame that stated Craig could possibly be convicted only if he took an affirmative step to mislead the government after Oct. three, 2013.

The timeline put the give attention to the hazily recalled meeting and a letter Craig sent a couple of days later addressing a number of the issues mentioned at the session. Prosecutors stated no less than one assertion within the letter was an outright lie and one other was, at greatest, critically misleading.

But jurors stated they didn’t really feel snug convicting Craig on these statements.

“There was a whole lot of very clever wording, but we just did not see it as sufficient to seek out him responsible,” Wilson stated.

“It was carried out in a really slender, lawyerly approach,” stated one other juror, Michael Meyer, 60.

Wilson stated, though, that he and others on the jury did consider Craig had lied to FARA personnel, simply not within the window the place they might convict him.

“I feel that he walked up very close to the road. I was not of the opinion Greg Craig was a nasty individual, but he walked proper up to the line and really properly might have crossed it,” the juror stated. “We expect the proof proved that he did lie previous to Oct. 3,” Wilson stated, adding later that he believed some jurors agreed with that statement, however in all probability not all.

Past politics, there are other explanations for why prosecutors charged Craig, although they probably realized it was a troublesome case.

The cost towards Craig stemmed from a report he and his then regulation firm, Skadden Arps, prepared for Ukraine’s government in 2012 concerning the controversial prosecution of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Another Skadden lawyer who worked on the report and was far junior to Craig, Alex van der Zwaan, pleaded responsible in February 2018 to mendacity to Mueller’s workforce about his work on the Ukraine venture Craig headed up. The Dutch-born van der Zwaan admitted to a felony false-statement cost which may have ended his legal profession. He additionally was sentenced to and served 30 days in prison earlier than being deported.

Van der Zwaan’s attorneys stated he lied because he didn’t need to lose his job at Skadden by acknowledging that he defied Craig by sharing a replica of his report with a public relations specialist for Ukraine.

Prosecutors might have believed it was unfair to have sought and obtained a felony conviction for van der Zwaan, then 33, whereas overlooking what Justice Department officials seen as lies by Craig about the exact same venture.

One question that loomed if Craig have been convicted was whether the decide may give him at the very least a short jail sentence as a way to avoid an unseemly disparity with the sentence imposed on van der Zwaan.

The prosecution of Craig also arguably superior an effort politicians in both events have supported to step up enforcement of the Overseas Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless, Craig wasn’t charged instantly with failing to register and a decide dropped a second charge Craig faced of creating a false FARA submission because it wasn’t clear whether the regulation applies to letters arguing towards having to register.

In fact, the political door swings both methods, and it is attainable that politics additionally colored the jury’s verdict. Jurors were not requested about their political beliefs, however they have been all residents of Washington, D.C., a metropolis that votes overwhelmingly for Democrats.

A number of jurors stated they have been intently following Mueller’s work and had a very unfavorable view of Paul Manafort, the former Trump marketing campaign chairman, who additionally helped commission, fund and publicize the report Craig prepared back in 2012.

While there appeared a critical danger that jurors can be suspicious of Craig’s choice to work with Manafort, Craig’s defense didn't seem to strike the Mueller followers or Manafort haters from the jury. Which may have been a sensible move.

One of many jurors who spoke to reporters Wednesday stated he seen the Craig case as a waste of assets that missed extra vital risks.

“What infuriates me about this entire case … is that the special counsel wasted so much time on a problem like this one when the republic itself was beneath assault. … I used to be deeply offended personally by this case,” Meyer added, before questioning why Mueller had charged nobody for colluding with Russia.

Meyer also stated he and another jurors didn't hold it towards Craig that he discovered himself working hand-in-hand for a time with a figure like Manafort.

“Quite a few the older jurors understood life is a sophisticated thing,” Meyer stated.

Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine

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