Former attorney Greg Craig (pictured) worked with Konstantin Kilimnik, a man the FBI alleges has ties to Russian intelligence, while preparing a review of the prosecution of Ukrainian President Yulia Tymoshenko. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images legal Craig worked with Manafort aide that FBI links to Russian intelligence

A man the FBI alleges has ties to Russian intelligence helped a U.S. legal team headed by former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig as it prepared a review of the prosecution of former Ukrainian President Yulia Tymoshenko, according to an FBI report released Monday.

As Craig fights a criminal case claiming he lied to and misled the Justice Department about the work he performed while at law firm Skadden Arps, his attorneys submitted a court filing attaching the 16-page FBI report, which details an interview Craig did with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators in September 2017.


In the interview, Craig said Konstantin Kilimnik — the Russian-Ukrainian man the FBI has alleged to have links to Russian intelligence — was involved in the project by Paul Manafort, who was a top consultant to President Viktor Yanukovych. The FBI report sheds light on a tangled web involving American lawyers and Ukraine’s government — and various figures acting as intermediaries between the two.

“CRAIG stated that … Kilimnik was ‘deputized’ by Manafort to assist CRAIG and Skadden with their logistics in Ukraine” during an initial April 2012 trip, the FBI report says. “Initially, Manafort was going to take CRAIG to appointments with Ukrainian government officials. However, Kilimnik ended up escorting them and CRAIG was very impressed with him. After CRAIG’s first trip to Ukraine where he laid out his plan for what they were going to do while in Ukraine on the project, Kilimnik no longer escorted them.”

The New York Times reported in February 2018 that an unidentified consultant who worked on the Skadden report said it “was facilitated in part by” Kilimnik, but there were no other details on his role. While some Kilimnik associates including Manafort aide Rick Gates have said they believed Kilimnik was involved in some way with intelligence services, there’s no indication in the documents that Craig was told of that alleged affiliation.

Kilimnik was eventually charged with obstruction of justice as part of Mueller’s case against Manafort. Prosecutors said Kilimnik, a longtime aide to Manafort in Ukraine, helped his former boss tamper with witnesses who might testify in the case.

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Kilimnik, who is believed to be in Russia, has not appeared in the U.S. to answer the charges. He has denied to reporters that he has any ties to Russian intelligence.

Craig’s lawyers filed the report as part of a motion to try to exclude discussion of his 2017 interview from the pending criminal case against him, set to go to trial in August. That case focuses on statements he made to the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act office in 2013 about the Ukraine-related work, but the indictment of Craig also mentions in passing that Craig made similar statements at the 2017 meeting with Mueller’s investigators.

Craig has pleaded not guilty and denies lying to or misleading the Justice Department or Mueller’s team.

The so-called 302 report alleges that at one point during a lengthy interrogation by Mueller prosecutors, Craig became visibly irritated. His annoyance was evident as the special counsel’s team questioned him about the convoluted way in which Skadden was paid for the report, with most of the funds coming from a Ukrainian oligarch close to Yanukovych and a small fraction of the money coming from Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice.

“Agent note: CRAIG’s face turned red during this part of the interview, he pushed himself away from the table in his seat, and crossed his arms,” according to the FBI report, prepared by Supervisory Special Agent Omer Meisel.

Prosecutors appear to be considering calling Meisel to testify about the 2017 interview with Craig, but Craig’s lawyers say digging into the session would be a confusing distraction at the trial, since the charges are about him allegedly lying to and misleading Justice Department officials four years earlier. It seems possible Mueller prosecutors Andrew Weissmann and Brian Richardson might be called as well, since they were on hand for the discussion with Craig two years ago.

“Delving into Mr. Craig’s statements during the 2017 SCO interview will occupy significant trial time given Supervisory Special Agent Meisel’s unreliable account of what was said and the number of other people who were in the room and who would be potential trial witnesses,” Craig’s attorneys write.

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“Exploring the 2017 SCO statements would be more than just a quick detour; it would approximate a full-on second trial for alleged false statements with

which Mr. Craig is not criminally charged.”

The motion to preclude discussion of the 2017 interview was one of a flurry of motions filed in the case Monday as both sides jockey about what matters can and cannot be broached at the upcoming trial.

One filing by prosecutors Monday indicated that at least one prominent figure inside Skadden urged Craig not to take on the lucrative project reviewing the Tymoshenko case. The founding partner of Skadden’s London office, Bruce Buck, saw the project as a potential danger to the firm’s other work, according to an email prosecutors filed.

“The general view seems to be that this is a no-win situation,” Buck wrote to Craig in February 2012. “If we come out that it [Tymoshenko’s trial] was NOT fair, they will not use our opinion and we could very probably be persona non grata for doing work there in the future. If we come out that it WAS fair, it will be viewed by Russia and others as a politically influenced opinion.

Buck, who’s best known as chairman of the Chelsea football club, said other Skadden partners working in former Soviet republics were against Craig’s project. “We would prefer that you not do this, but there is not a conflict as such. If you decide to go ahead, please can you wall off the European partners so there are no issues going forward.”

While Yanukovych’s allies were not initially happy with Craig’s report or its portrayal in the media, they eventually came to view the effort as a smashing success, according to Jonathan Hawker, a public relations adviser who worked on the project.

Hawker told federal prosecutors that officials from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office eventually celebrated him and Craig as heroes at an event in Ukraine the PR man described as a “medieval feast.”

“Following dinner, there was traditional music played, then music with everyone singing, including the PG and Craig,” Hawker told prosecutors in January of this year, according to an FBI report the prosecution filed Monday. “Hawker was presented with a golden orb with a sort of plaque and a clock inside it. He and Craig were laughing about it when Craig was presented with an award that had two golden orbs and looked even more like ‘bollocks.’”

Hawker said the Ukrainian prosecutor insisted the two orbs were supposed to represent equality between the prosecution and defense, the report says. “Hawker joked to Craig that he was surprised it was not lopsided and Craig agreed,” the FBI added.

Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.

