Lawyers for former Obama administration White House counsel Greg Craig say they expect their client to be charged in a foreign lobbying investigation that grew out of the special counsel’s Russia probe. … The scrutiny of Craig stems from an investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his work on behalf of a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. If filed, the charges would come about three months after Craig’s former law firm agreed to pay more than $4.6 million and publicly acknowledge that it failed to report its work for the Ukrainian government.
AP
Background: the NYT says lots of people in Washington were doing what Craig and Manafort did.
The Manafort case, and others developed by Mr. Mueller, marked the first high-profile criminal charges in years under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. The 1938 law requires Americans to disclose detailed information about lobbying and public relations work for foreign governments and politicians.
NYT
It had rarely been used in prosecutions, even as prominent Washington lobbyists, consultants, lawyers and former public officials collected ever-larger, often six- and seven-figure paydays from foreign interests looking to burnish their sometimes unsavory reputations in the United States capital.
Mr. Manafort’s case, and the investigations into Mr. Craig and other high-profile consultants who worked with Mr. Manafort, have left Washington’s K Street lobbying corridor scrambling to deal with the heightened scrutiny.
Craig said ‘why me? SDNY already gave me a clean bill of health’.
In a statement, Craig’s lawyers noted that the case against him was investigated by the Southern District of New York, and although they expect an indictment from the Justice Department in Washington, they allege that prosecutors are abusing their authority.
Washington Examiner
“This case was thoroughly investigated by the SDNY and that office decided not to pursue charges against Mr. Craig. We expect an indictment by the DC US Attorney’s Office at the request of the National Security Division. 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,” Craig’s lawyers said in a statement.
The real takeaway of the Mueller investigation is that Washington is honeycombed with lobbyists working for foreign governments. The voters probably guessed this already and this probably emboldened them to vote for Trump. There was nothing to lose by blowing the whole setup sky high.