A jury won’t hear about how former White House Counsel Greg Craig tried to get a job for Paul Manafort’s daughter
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a defense motion to keep jurors from hearing about former White House Counsel Greg Craig’s efforts to get a job for Paul Manafort’s daughter at Craig’s law firm while Craig was engaged in a multimillion-dollar assignment for the government of Ukraine.
Campoamor-Sanchez said the episode with Andrea Manafort supported the notion that Craig was acting for Paul Manafort when Craig contacted New York Times reporter David Sanger about the Ukraine report in 2012. The prosecutor said Craig is expected to testify at trial that he made that contact to protect his own reputation, not on behalf of Ukraine.Sign Up
“I find the probative value of the evidence to be quite minimal. … It’s hard to characterize it as much more than an effort to go after the defendant’s character in general,” Jackson added. “I’ve probably had my fill of colorful verbs and adjectives and adverbs,” the judge said at the outset of Wednesday’s hearing. “The defense, in particular, has laid on a hefty dose of condescension over everything. I don’t think we need to hear that kind of tone today.”
Jackson made no immediate rulings on those, but there were hints she might grant a motion by Craig’s lawyers arguing that an allegedly false and misleading letter he sent to the Justice Department about the Ukraine work did not violate a special statute for inaccurate submissions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Craig’s defense contends that because he was under no legal obligation to submit the letter, it couldn’t run afoul of the FARA false-statement law.
“From the beginning Mr. Craig was aware that the FARA unit was looking at whether he had an obligation to register,” McCullough said. “That is front and center to the initial inquiry to Mr. Craig. The letter filed in response to that fell squarely within the meaning of this statute.”
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