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To: defconw
Why did a US law firm do work for a Ukrainian corrupt gas company?

215 posted on 11/20/2019, 9:36:57 PM by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.)
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It was definitely a nest of vipers!

It comes to mind that we should not be forgetting the ties Podesta and Manafort AND GREG CRAIG had to lobbying in the Ukrain.

From the Greg Craig wiki page which I captured sometime around the time he lawyered up in Sept of 2018:

“...CRAIG LED A TEAM OF LAWYERS FROM SKADDEN, ARPS WHO WERE COMMISSIONED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF UKRAINE UNDER PRESIDENT VIKTOR YANUKOVICH TO LOOK INTO ERRORS IN THE TRIAL OF FORMER UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER YULIA V. TYMOSHENKO ON ABUSE-OF-POWER CHARGES.THE report, released in December 2012, found that Tymoshenko was denied legal counsel at “critical stages” of the trial and that her lawyers were wrongly barred from calling witnesses in her defense. The report concluded that Tymoshenko’s right to a fair trial “appears to have been compromised to a degree that is troubling under Western standards of due process and the rule of law.” However, the report also concluded that Tymoshenko’s conviction was supported by the evidence presented at trial and rejected the claim that the prosecution of Tymoshenko was politically motivated by Yanukovich to obstruct the Ukrainian opposition. Tymoshenko’s attorneys rejected that finding, saying that the report was not independent because it was commissioned by the Ukrainian government, which paid Skadden, Arps an undisclosed sum of money, and human rights organizations regarded the report as a “whitewash.””

“Craig promoted the report to journalists and members of Congress without much success. EXPERTS SAY THAT CRAIG SHOULD HAVE REGISTERED AS A FOREIGN AGENT, AS LOBBYISTS ARE REQUIRED TO DO WHEN THEY LOBBY ON BEHALF OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS.”

“In April 2018, Craig resigned from the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, following the indictment of Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer at the firm’s London office. Craig was the lead attorney supervising the firm’s work for former Ukrainian president Yanukovich, in which Zwann participated. Zwaan was later charged by Mueller investigation and pleaded guilty to making false statements. LATER IN 2018, NBC AND CNN REPORTED THAT FOLLOWING A REFERRAL FROM MUELLER’S OFFICE, THE U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK WAS INVESTIGATING CRAIG AND OTHERS, INCLUDING EX-LOBBYIST TONY PODESTA AND FORMER REPUBLICAN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE VIN WEBER, AS PART OF A BROADER INVESTIGATION INTO THE ACTIVITIES OF PAUL MANAFORT....”

He was acquitted on Sept 4, 2019.