Greg Craig Repped by Bill Taylor & Zuckerman Spaeder Amid SDNY Investigation

Zuckerman Spaeder’s William Taylor III is representing Greg Craig, the former Skadden lawyer facing legal scrutiny as part of a federal investigation into whether he failed to disclose work as a foreign agent during his time at the firm.

Taylor, a founding partner at Zuckerman Spaeder, confirmed the firm’s representation of Craig to the National Law Journal. William J. Murphy, a Baltimore-based partner at the firm, also is representing Craig.

The firm is representing Craig, former of counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and previously White House counsel to President Barack Obama, as federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have reportedly investigated whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That investigation is tied to work Craig and Skadden did in 2012 as part of a lobbying scheme by Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who pleaded guilty Friday to two felonies, including one FARA-related count.

“Greg Craig was not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” Taylor said in a statement. He declined to comment further.

Taylor also has represented Fusion GPS, the research firm behind the Trump-Russia dossier, and was the attorney for former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a sexual assault case, among a host of other clients.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are considering bringing criminal charges against Craig, as well as action against Skadden that includes a civil settlement or a deferred prosecution agreement, CNN reported Friday.

Craig, who retired from Skadden in April, did not comment when reached by phone Friday. A spokesperson for Skadden also did not return a request for comment.

In 2012, Manafort—a longtime lobbyist and Republican operative—retained Skadden to write a report that evaluated the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, the political rival of one of Manafort’s top clients, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Craig oversaw that controversial report.

“Manafort caused Ukraine to hire the law firm so that its report could be used in the United States and elsewhere to defend the Tymoshenko criminal trial and argue that President Yanukovych and Ukraine had not engaged in selective prosecution,” special counsel prosecutors said in a court document filed Friday.

In private, Skadden employees told Manafort that evidence of Tymoshenko’s criminal intent was “virtually non-existent.” The firm’s report also not disclose that Skadden had represented Ukraine itself, including “in connection with the Tymoshenko case and to provide training to the trial team prosecuting Tymoshenko,” according to Friday’s filing.

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