Grand jury indicts former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig

Former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig was charged Thursday by a federal grand jury with making false statements and concealing material information about his work in private practice lobbying on behalf of the Ukrainian government.

The two-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. says Craig, 74, purposefully and repeatedly misled federal investigators about his need to register as a foreign lobbyist, including in 2017 when interviewed by prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller.

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Anticipating the indictment, Craig’s attorneys on Wednesday night issued a preemptive statement saying their client was not guilty “of any charge” and that his work had been “thoroughly investigated” by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who declined to press charges.

The lawyers, William W. Taylor, III and William J. Murphy, said DOJ’S National Security Division asked for Craig’s case to be taken up by the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. and slammed “the government’s stubborn insistence on prosecuting Mr. Craig” as a “misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion.”