Monday, September 23, 2019

Update: Greg Craig Acquitted in Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Trial

Readers may recall that on May 30, 2019, AEMP published Caleb Rossiter's piece titled "When Foreign Policy Meets the Law: Greg Craig and the Ukraine." http://www.aemp.us/2019/05/when-foreign-policy-meets-law-greg.html

In the piece, Rossiter called Craig's prosecution for lying to Justice Department investigators misguided.

The Department had argued that Craig was acting as an agent of the government of Ukraine when he provided the media with a report he had prepared for the government on the fairness of the trial of a former president. The Department argued that this act should have triggered his registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Craig argued that his contract with the Ukrainian government was for an independent report, and that he contacted the media because the government was misrepresenting its findings. Craig's findings included numerous judgments that the trial had violated Western judicial standards.

Rossiter's piece reviewed the trial, the contract, and the report, and concluded that Craig was hired precisely because his foreign policy reputation as a key backer of expanding NATO and an advocate of the rule of law in the former Soviet bloc would make his independent report more credible than one controlled by the government of Ukraine.

Rossiter had been a colleague of Craig's on the congressional staff, working to end wars in Central America. He disagreed with Craig on the decision to expand NATO, but believed that Craig's work on the Ukraine contract was consistent with his long-held position that promoting the rule of law in Eastern Europe was in the interests of the United States.

On September 4, 2019, after a three-week trial, Craig was acquitted. Here is an article describing the trial and its outcome.

https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/09/04/greg-craig-found-not-guilty-of-deceiving-doj-about-ukraine-work/?slreturn=20190823103621

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