Obama counsel faces charges from Mueller

WASHINGTON—Lawyers for former Obama-era White House counsel Greg Craig said Wednesday they expect prosecutors to charge him in a foreign lobbying scheme that special counsel Robert Mueller investigated. Craig came under scrutiny during the inquiry into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. About three months ago, Craig’s former law firm agreed to pay more than $5 million and publicly acknowledge that it failed to report its work for the Ukrainian government. Craig is facing questions about whether he made false and misleading statements to U.S. Department of Justice officials about his work for Ukraine.

“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,” attorneys William Taylor and William Murphy said in a statement on Wednesday.

Craig, the first White House counsel to former President Barack Obama, would be the first Democratic operative charged in a case linked with Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.