{"id":178675,"date":"2018-09-24T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/09\/24\/ironically-mueller-is-cleaning-up-the-swamp\/"},"modified":"2018-09-24T18:09:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T23:09:00","slug":"ironically-mueller-is-cleaning-up-the-swamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/09\/24\/ironically-mueller-is-cleaning-up-the-swamp\/","title":{"rendered":"Ironically, Mueller is Cleaning Up the Swamp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Specifically, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/former-white-house-counsel-gregory-craig-under-scrutiny-by-prosecutors-in-offshoot-of-mueller-probe\/2018\/09\/23\/68de1acc-bdac-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html\">another lobbyist is under investigation for failure to register as a foreign lobbyist<\/a>, and this one is a former Obama administration official.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s hoping that this unlubricates the bearings of that old revolving door:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Federal prosecutors have stepped up their investigation of prominent Washington attorney Gregory Craig for work he conducted at his former law firm on behalf of the Ukrainian government in 2012, an effort coordinated by Paul Manafort, according to people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n<p>Shortly before Manafort<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/manafort-plans-to-plead-guilty-to-second-set-of-charges\/2018\/09\/14\/a1541068-b5c9-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.f509214998cc\"> pleaded guilty to charges<\/a> of conspiracy and obstruction this month, attorneys for Craig received requests for information from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who are investigating Craig\u2019s activities as an offshoot of the broader probe led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to one person with knowledge of the exchange. <\/p>\n<p>Craig\u2019s case \u2014 and that of two Washington lobbyists who worked with Manafort on Ukrainian matters \u2014 were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/mueller-referred-foreign-lobbying-case-to-new-york-prosecutors\/2018\/07\/31\/7e829cfc-9518-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.724ad85304bc\">referred last April <\/a>to New York prosecutors, who appear to be focused on whether the three failed to register as foreign agents while working with Manafort\u2019s Ukrainian clients.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Still, the investigation of Craig \u2014 a White House counsel for President Barack Obama \u2014 along with lobbyists Vin Weber and Tony Podesta, has shaken Washington\u2019s lobbying and legal community, which until recently had faced little scrutiny of its representation of foreign clients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThere is a rising level of concern, particularly from law firms providing services to foreign governments,\u201d said Joshua Ian Rosenstein, an expert on foreign lobbying registration compliance at the Sandler Reiff law firm. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good.<\/p>\n<p>I want these motherf%$#ers to be terrified.<\/p>\n<p>Even if it only effects their behaviors with foreign clients, it would be nice to see the House of Saud losing influence in DC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Specifically, another lobbyist is under investigation for failure to register as a foreign lobbyist, and this one is a former Obama administration official. Here&#8217;s hoping that this unlubricates the bearings of that old revolving door: Federal prosecutors have stepped up their investigation of prominent Washington attorney Gregory Craig for work he conducted at his former &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[513,394,407,374,486],"class_list":["post-178675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-campaign-finance","tag-foreign-relations","tag-justice","tag-politics","tag-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}