Obama Advisor’s Trial Begins

Via American Action News:

 Barack Obama’s former White House Counsel Greg Craig could be the first Democrat to go to prison over a Russia-collusion theory that largely turned out to be a nothing-burger.

NPR further reports:
 

Craig, a top attorney in Democratic political circles who worked for two Democratic presidents, was indicted in April on two counts of providing false statements to the Justice Department related to his Ukraine work. The judge presiding over the case threw out one of those counts last week, but Craig will still go to trial on the single remaining count.

The case against Craig, who has pleaded not guilty, was born out of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. During its investigation, Mueller’s team uncovered evidence of alleged wrongdoing by Craig, but referred the material to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia for prosecution. It is one of several cases to emerge from the Mueller inquiry that allege violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The law, known as FARA, requires that people doing political or public relations work in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign entity disclose that fact. It is illegal to willfully not register or to provide false or misleading statements to the Justice Department’s FARA unit.

In Craig’s case, prosecutors say he did just that in connection with his work for the Ukrainian government. The indictment alleges that Craig withheld information that he knew he should have provided to the department and provided other information that he knew was incorrect.

Craig also served as a legal advisor to Bill Clinton and partook in notoriously corrupt Ukrainian politics before authorities convicted former President Viktor Yanukovich of treason. He worked with Paul Manafort.