Mueller ties on display at jury selection for Greg Craig trial

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team may have disbanded, but potential jurors called for the criminal trial of Obama White House counsel Greg Craig were told by a judge Monday that the false-statements case is an outgrowth of the Mueller probe and involves some of the most high-profile defendants Mueller prosecuted.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson advised the 70 Washington residents summoned for the trial that they may be hearing from or about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and deputy chairman Rick Gates, both of whom were previously involved with the Ukraine-related project Craig stands accused of lying about.

Gates, who’s cooperating with prosecutors while awaiting sentencing, is expected to be a key witness for the government. Manafort is not expected to testify but arranged more than $4 million that a Ukrainian oligarch paid Craig and his law firm Skadden Arps for a 2012 report Ukraine’s government requested assessing the trial and conviction of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Manafort also worked with Craig on the public rollout of the report in December 2012.

Craig was indicted in April of this year over alleged efforts to deceive Justice Department officials who inquired about his role in the project shortly after its release. Craig’s responses satisfied officials in Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration Act office at the time, but Mueller began digging into the matter anew in 2017 after Manafort and Gates came under scrutiny over their ties to pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine.

Jackson told the potential jurors twice of the Mueller links. At one point, she noted that part of the Craig probe was conducted by Mueller’s office and asked jurors to notify her if anything about that connection would “prevent you or hinder you” from being fair in Craig’s trial, which is now being handled by lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington and Justice’s National Security Division.

Jackson said her goal was to find jurors who “do not already know anything about the case.”

The judge also read the jury pool a list of names linked to the case, which included Mueller, his deputies Michael Dreeben and Andrew Weissmann, as well as other lawyers and FBI agents on the special counsel’s team.

How many potential jurors raised concerns about the Mueller links is unclear because the judge had them flag such concerns by writing designated numbers on index cards they were given. Jurors were then questioned individually behind closed doors by the judge and lawyers for the two sides.

Near the outset of Monday’s session, Jackson gave the potential jurors a hint of Craig’s high-powered resume, noting that he “served as a lawyer for government agencies and officials, working with among others President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.”

Craig was a top adviser to Obama on his presidential campaign and served for about a year as Obama’s first White House counsel. Previously, Craig held the prestigious post of director of policy planning at the State Department before leaving to represent President Bill Clinton during his impeachment.

Other boldface names potential jurors were asked about by the judge include: former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.) and lobbyist Tony Podesta, both of whom worked for Ukraine; New York Times reporter David Sanger, whom Craig gave an advance exclusive look at his report; former Wall Street Journal bureau chief Al Hunt, who was set to be offered such a look before Sanger was swapped in, as well as Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Ted Kennedy, and Cheryl Mills, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It was not immediately clear why Kennedy and Mills were on the list, but the judge said Friday that some names were added by the defense because they may be called as character witnesses for Craig.

Craig, 74, was present in the courtroom and stood for a time — unsmiling, with his hands folded in front of him — as the judge introduced him to the potential jurors. He spent much of the public portion of Monday’s proceedings poring over a list of jurors and making comments to his defense lawyers.

Reporters and the public were permitted to watch the initial part of Monday’s proceedings, but most of the courtroom was later cleared so the potential jurors could sit in the gallery. Journalists were initially told they’d be completely barred from jury selection, but the judge later relaxed that, eventually admitting eight reporters to sit in the well of the courtroom behind the prosecution table.

However, once Jackson read the questions and names of figures in the case, she told the reporters to leave and largely closed the courtroom to others as jurors were questioned one at a time. Attorneys, paralegals and court personnel were allowed to remain, as were members of Craig’s family and a jury consultant working for the defense, Paul Jepsen.

Many other judges do most juror questioning in public, while giving jurors an opportunity to speak to the judge and lawyers privately about sensitive issues.

But Jackson suggested some concern that one potential juror might blurt out something that could bias the whole pool.

“If they don’t know anything about the case, we don’t want them learning it from you,” the judge told the group.

When Jackson warned the potential jurors not to try to look up information about the case on their phone while they await being called in by the judge, many in the group chuckled.

Jackson noted the chortling and suggested she wouldn’t be surprised at the impulse to research the case. “That has happened to me before,” the judge said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a Washington jury pool, one of the potential jurors called in Monday was a former senior White House official himself: Bruce Reed, who was chief of domestic policy for President Bill Clinton and chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden. (Reed served in the Obama White House from 2011 to 2013, after Craig’s stint there.)

Just after Reed entered the courtroom, he traded a nod with Craig and mouthed a “hello” to him across the courtroom. Craig smiled and nodded back. Reed was later dismissed from the pool.

Reed appeared to be near the end of the roster the judge was working from. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was excused.

Craig initially faced two felony counts in the case: one for implementing a scheme to deceive Justice’s FARA office and another for submitting a false or misleading FARA filing. Jackson threw out the second count last week, saying it was unclear whether letters Craig sent to the office were covered by the FARA-specific law.

Craig faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on the remaining false-statement-scheme charge, although his actual sentence would probably involve little or no jail time. However, he would likely lose his law license.

Testimony at the trial, which is expected to take about two weeks, could begin Tuesday afternoon.