Greg Craig, Our 44th President

RUSH: Now, here's audio sound bites. This is Obama. He has to ask Greg Craig, the White House counsel, for help here, signing the closing of Gitmo executive order.

OBAMA: (chiseling in marble sound effect) In order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo, uh, and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and interests of justice, I hereby order. And we then we will then, uh, provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than, uh, one year from now. We will be... Uhhh.... Ummm.... Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees? Is that it, eh, uh, what we're doing?

OBAMA: We will be, uh, setting up a process whereby this is going to be taking place.

RUSH: By the way, we are etching his words. We're chiseling his words in marble, since that's how CNN has portrayed the articulate pronouncements of President Obama. "By the way, Greg, what are we doing here? Separate executive order with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees. Is that what we're doing?" "We will set up a process! We'll set up a process. I'm sorry. I've also been asked not to be so critical 'til Obama really messes up. I know he just messed up, bit I don't think some of the dingleberries in this country quite understand how he screwed up yet, and if I didn't tell 'em, they won't know. We're going to set up a process? Can I translate that? How would you translate that, "We're going

Thank you for the the heads up.

Here is More: (It is a long read but worth everybody’s while.)

Greg Craig and the Terrorist

The new White House counsel and the ugly case no one wants to talk about

BY BYRON YORK

By any standard, the story of Pedro Miguel González is astonishing. The son of a prominent Panamanian politician, González, according to U.S. prosecutors, murdered a United States Army sergeant on a road outside Panama City on June 10, 1992, the day before Pres. George H. W. Bush was to visit the country. With his father’s help, González fled Panama, eventually coming back to be acquitted in a sham trial. Though the Clinton administration labeled him a terrorist, González became an important political figure in Panama, ultimately winning election as president of the national assembly — an event that so angered leaders of both political parties in the United States Senate that they put a hold on the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement while González held that office.

American prosecutors have long wanted to put González behind bars; the nearly 17-year-old murder charge stands today. But in addition to his family in Panama, González has at least one very well-connected, very influential advocate in the United States: Gregory Craig, the man Barack Obama chose to be the next White House counsel. Craig’s representation of an American soldier’s killer drew scant notice during the 2008 campaign, when Craig was a top Obama adviser. It has drawn little attention since Obama named him White House counsel. And it will probably remain relatively unnoticed as the spotlight focuses on the Obama administration’s economic plan, on the Middle East, and on Iraq.

But Craig’s role in the González case, or at least what little is known about it, is worth exploring. Top White House officials like Craig serve solely at the president’s pleasure; they are not subject to the scrutiny of the confirmation process. They have made choices and connections in their careers that tell us something about how they will perform their new duties. For Gregory Craig, that includes the case of Pedro Miguel González.

President Bush’s 1992 visit to Panama was supposed to be a celebration of democracy after the U.S. ouster of dictator Manuel Noriega. It turned out to be a rocky affair. The president’s planned speech to a large audience at the Plaza Porras in Panama City fell apart when gunfire broke out on the fringes of the crowd and authorities responded with tear-gas grenades. Secret Service agents drew automatic weapons and hustled Bush off the stage, to the safety of an American military base. There would be no big rally that day.

But the day before had been worse. Two American soldiers, traveling in a Humvee from Panama City to Colón, were ambushed by attackers firing AK-47s from the windows of a stolen car. One of the soldiers, Army Sgt. Zak Hernández of Puerto Rico, was killed — shot 22 times. Another soldier, Army Sgt. Ronald Marshall of Arkansas, was seriously wounded but survived.

Police quickly identified three suspects. The ringleader, investigators believed, was Pedro Miguel González. Pedro’s father was Gerardo González, a rabidly anti-American top official of Noriega’s Revolutionary Democratic party. The elder González helped his son escape to the Dominican Republic and later, some investigators concluded, to Cuba. Years passed with no word on the young man’s whereabouts. “I’m not going to tell you that,” the elder González told the Miami Herald in 1994 when asked where Pedro Miguel was. “He’s in a safe place outside of Panama.”

The U.S. government desperately wanted to find González. The FBI sent a team of investigators to Panama City and offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture. American investigators set up phone lines in the hope of getting a tip that would break the case.

Meanwhile, in Washington, six weeks after the killing, a federal grand jury indicted González and a co-defendant on first-degree murder, conspiracy, and related charges. But with little help on the ground in Panama, these efforts came to nothing. “We got cold-shouldered by the Panamanians,” Eric Marcy, the prosecutor who handled the case, told me recently. In addition, there was no extradition agreement between the U.S. and Panama, meaning the indictment was more of a precautionary measure than anything else. “We typically indict an important case that happens abroad, even if we don’t have much chance of getting the defendant,” Marcy says. “Then, if they ever fly through Miami or New York, we can grab them.”

But González, protected by his father’s influence, stayed out of Miami and New York. And Panama, too — until after the 1994 election that brought his father’s political party, headed by the new president, Ernesto Pérez Balladares, back into power. In a move orchestrated by his father, Pedro Miguel González turned himself in — in grand style. He appeared at the presidential palace, where Pérez Balladares met him and his father personally. The younger González agreed to go to jail — where he got a private room, air conditioning, a television, and a computer — and await trial.

American prosecutors were absolutely sure that Pedro Miguel was guilty. Three people saw him do it. The car from which the fatal shots were fired was found on Gerardo González’s property. One of the automatic weapons was found buried where González’s sister worked. But Gerardo González hired the best lawyers for his son’s defense, overpowering an ineffective team of Panamanian prosecutors. Gerardo also accused a key prosecutor, Jaime Abad Espinosa, of railroading Pedro Miguel. In a move that outraged the U.S. and human-rights organizations, the Panamanian government arrested Abad and charged him with suppressing evidence that might have exonerated Pedro Miguel. Abad told the New York Times that Gerardo González had snapped at him, “You’re a CIA dog, and I’m going to see you go to jail.” Abad was later convicted and fined.

“The trial was a farce from the get-go,” William Hughes, who was the U.S. ambassador to Panama at the time, told me. “It was politically manipulated, witnesses were intimidated. The jury was composed of employees of the Panamanian government, and agents sympathetic to González went into the jury room to remind the jurors how many years their family had worked for the government and how much they had accumulated in Social Security.” Hughes, a former prosecutor and member of Congress, saw that the situation was hopeless; his main task became to preserve the evidence “in case there was ever the opportunity to have a fair tribunal review it.”

On November 1, 1997, after three weeks in the courtroom, Pedro Miguel was acquitted. Jamie Rubin, spokesman for the Clinton State Department, said the United States was “deeply disappointed.” “The murder of an American soldier by terrorists is something which the United States government takes very seriously,” Rubin said. Citing witness testimony and ballistics evidence, Rubin added, “The verdict in the face of persuasive evidence raises questions about the handling of this case.”

But the fact was, the younger González had gotten off. What could the United States do? “There was going to be no way, short of a kidnapping, of ever getting him,” Eric Marcy told me. To William Hughes, the ambassador, that was never a real possibility, given the political firestorm such a move would have set off. What was possible was that González might make a misstep and find himself in U.S. custody. “He was always worried that he would travel to a place and we would get him there,” Hughes told me. Indeed, in an 1999 interview with the Dallas Morning News, González complained that he was constantly being watched. “There are men hired by the United States following me wherever I go,” he said, “waiting for the chance to grab me.” But González was careful, and he never fell into American hands.

In 1999, just two years after his acquittal, González ran for a seat in the Panamanian national assembly. With his well-known name and anti-American stance, he won, giving him not only independent political power but immunity from further prosecution. In 2007, González, still under indictment in the United States for murder, was elected president of the national assembly. That set off anger throughout the U.S. government; Democratic senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, wrote a letter to the Panamanians calling González’s election “a serious obstacle” to passage of the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement, then under consideration in the Senate.

González remained defiant. “Zak Hernández was a soldier of the invading army,” he told the New York Times. “Who killed him? It could have been any Panamanian angry about the visit of President Bush.” But the case still troubled him. A few years earlier, González had said, “I want them to resolve this through the proper legal channels.” And that is where Greg Craig came in.

Craig, now 63, is best known for his defense of Bill Clinton in the Senate impeachment trial. But much of Craig’s experience prior to that was in the area of foreign affairs, particularly in Latin America. Originally a lawyer with the powerful Washington firm Williams & Connolly, in 1984 Craig left to become a foreign-policy adviser to Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy. In that role, he supported the Nicaraguan Sandinistas against Contra rebels. He supported Kennedy’s call to end the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and in 1986, after Fidel Castro released political prisoners to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and (somewhat improbably) French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, Craig traveled to Cuba to arrange the release of a Bay of Pigs prisoner to Kennedy. Craig also went to Panama as the U.S. built the case against Noriega.

After leaving Kennedy’s office, Craig returned to Williams & Connolly. When his one-year ban on lobbying ended, he immediately registered as a foreign agent to represent Panama, Argentina, and Bolivia. In 1997, he joined the Clinton State Department as a top adviser to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In August 1998, he left State to join the Clinton impeachment team, and the next year went back to Williams & Connolly and his foreign clients. In 2000, he returned to Cuba, working with Fidel Castro to bring about the return of Elián González, the young boy whose mother had died trying to bring him to the United States.

The first public discussion of Craig’s involvement with Pedro Miguel González came in a January 2008 editorial in the Dallas Morning News. At the time, Craig was an adviser to candidate Obama, and the editorial called on Obama to make Craig leave either the González case or the campaign. “Plenty of presidential candidates have been embarrassed by aides with controversial pasts,” the paper wrote. “Candidates often must choose between defending the aide and doing what’s best for the campaign. This might be such a moment for Barack Obama and his senior foreign policy adviser, Gregory Craig.” The editorial said Craig did not respond to an interview request.

A few weeks after the editorial appeared, however, Craig was asked about González in a public forum, at a discussion of Latin America policy sponsored by George Washington University. “It is true that I’ve been advising Mr. González in connection with discussions that he is having through his attorneys with the Justice Department about the outstanding case,” Craig said. “I have not undertaken to represent him in any of the proceedings other than to open up a path of communications between him and the Justice Department about that case.” Craig added that the Obama campaign knew “full well” about his involvement with González, and that he had recused himself from any Team Obama discussions of U.S.-Panama relations.

What did Craig mean when he said he had undertaken “to open up a path of communications” with the Justice Department? Finding out proved very difficult. I first asked the Obama transition office, which handles Craig’s relations with the press. After I sent a few questions via e-mail — including the relatively simple inquiry “Does Mr. Craig believe that González is innocent?” — the office asked what my deadline was. I told them, and on the last day I received a two-word message: “Declining comment.”

The Bush Justice Department was no more forthcoming. A former official with knowledge of what went on at the highest levels of the department told me he didn’t remember any contacts with Craig, suggesting that Craig’s work focused on lower levels within the Criminal Division — in particular, the Office of International Affairs. A Justice Department spokesman promised to provide information on the matter, but after making inquiries wrote to me: “Since this deals with a member of the new administration’s staff, I’ll have to direct you to the transition team for information. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” I have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Office of International Affairs, but while federal agencies must offer some sort of response within 20 working days, such requests often go unfulfilled for months, and sometimes years.

I also contacted Williams & Connolly with a number of basic questions about the González case. A firm executive told me that “confidentiality provisions of the Rules of Professional Responsibility” prevented her from discussing the matter. When I wrote back that Craig himself had spoken publicly about it, and included the transcript of his statement, she did not respond. Finally, I tried an intermediary, someone who knew Craig and who could ask him for some information. That didn’t work, either.

If Craig were up for a job that required Senate confirmation, we might well learn much about this case. But as it is, the answers to many pertinent questions might be a long time coming. What services did Craig perform? When did he begin assisting González, and when did he stop? Did his representation of González come about as a result of his previous lobbying for Panama? Who paid him? Did he encourage González to face justice in the United States?

González aside, Craig is a busy lawyer who has had a lot of clients over the years. In addition to those discussed earlier, he defended Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general accused of corruption in the oil-for-food program in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq; John Hinckley, the man who shot and almost killed Ronald Reagan; and William Kennedy Smith, the Kennedy nephew accused of rape in Palm Beach, Fla., in 1991.

It’s hard to point out a pattern in these cases. It’s fair to say he handled the Smith matter because of his Kennedy connections. He worked on the Clinton defense because he is a loyal Democrat who’d known the Clintons since his years with them at Yale Law School. And Hinckley? Well, Hinckley’s father was wealthy and hired Williams & Connolly, although that was probably a case some lawyers wouldn’t have taken.

In the area of foreign affairs, however, there is perhaps a pattern in Craig’s work. From Pedro Miguel González to Fidel Castro to Daniel Ortega, Craig has offered his assistance to antagonists of the United States. It’s not illegal, but it’s the kind of thing that lawyers occasionally agonize about. “It’s a delicate issue because generally we don’t hold lawyers responsible for the views of their clients,” one conservative attorney in Washington told me recently. “That said, it is a point worth considering when a lawyer has time and again gone to the well and represented somebody on the other side of an issue from America. Lawyers remain free to turn down clients.”

A liberal Washington lawyer who knows Craig put it a bit differently. “Greg defending somebody who is a bad guy not only does not offend me, it’s consistent with what lawyers do,” he told me. “The answer is everybody has their own moral compass, and there’s a line out there that most lawyers will answer, no, I wouldn’t do that one, I’ll let somebody else do that one.”

When it came to Pedro Miguel González, Craig said yes, I’ll do that one. Now, as he assumes the post of White House counsel, and with it all the issues that will confront the president’s lawyer, the question will again be: Where does he draw the line?

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