Gregory Bestor Craig (born March 4, 1945) is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2010. A former attorney at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly, Craig has represented numerous high-profile clients. Prior to becoming White House Counsel, he served as assistant to the President and special counsel in the White House of President Bill Clinton, where he directed the team defending Clinton against impeachment. Craig also served as a senior advisor to Senator Edward Kennedy and to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
After leaving the Obama administration, Craig returned to private practice as a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In 2019, Craig was indicted on charges of lying to federal prosecutors about the work he did at Skadden on behalf of the government of Ukraine under Viktor F. Yanukovych, work referred to Craig by Paul Manafort, then a Yanukovych consultant. Craig was acquitted in a jury trial.
Early life and education Craig was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 4, 1945. Craig's father, William Gregory Craig (1914–2005), was a Navy officer who served in World War II and after the war served as chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges system (1973–1976), chancellor of the California Community College system (1977–1980), and president of the Monterey Institute (1980–1988). The elder Craig unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Governor of Vermont. The younger considers Vermont his home state; he grew up as one of four boys in Middlebury, Vermont. He spent some of his early years in Palo Alto, California.
Craig attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He then attended Harvard University, graduating with an A.B. in 1967.Gregory B. Craig, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (accessed July 22, 2015). At Harvard, Craig sang with the Krokodiloes, Harvard's oldest all-male a cappella group. Craig graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a concentration in history. His senior thesis was on Upton Sinclair's campaigns during the Great Depression. Craig was elected chairman of the Harvard Undergraduate Council during his senior year. During his time at Harvard, Craig became familiar with prominent faculty members, including Henry Kissinger. During this period, Craig registered black voters in Mississippi, tutored children in Harlem, and "became Harvard's most widely quoted student leader in opposition to the Vietnam War."
Craig considered claiming conscientious objector status to avoid the Vietnam-era draft, but he eventually submitted himself to the Exeter, New Hampshire, draft board, saying that "I thought it was the only honorable thing to do." Craig received a medical deferment for a shoulder injury. Craig earned a Lionel de Jersey Harvard Fellowship to study at Cambridge University in England, where he received a master's degree in historical studies in 1968.
After returning to United States, Craig attended Yale Law School, where he was a member of the same class as Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham, and David E. Kendall. In the fall of 1971, Craig sublet his apartment in New Haven to Rodham and Clinton for $75 a month. Craig received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1972. After graduating, Craig, along with Kendall, took a job at the law firm of Williams & Connolly.
Legal and government career from 1972 to 2009 Craig worked mostly at Williams & Connolly from 1972 to 2009, with his tenure there interrupted by periods working as a public defender, on the staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, at the State Department, and at the Clinton White House.
Three years after Craig began at Williams & Connolly, he left to follow his wife to Connecticut, where she obtained a master's degree in fine arts. While in Connecticut, Craig worked as a public defender.
Craig later returned to Williams & Connolly, where he was protege of Joe Califano and Edward Bennett Williams. One of Craig's first big criminal cases at Williams & Connolly was that of multimillionaire D.C. developer Dominic F. Antonelli Jr., the chairman of Parking Management Inc. (PMI), who was charged with bribery and conspiracy in connection with an attempt to secure a D.C. government lease from D.C. official Joseph P. Yeldell, his codefendant. Craig defended Antonelli alongside his Williams & Connolly colleagues Kendall and Williams. Antonelli and Yeldell were convicted by a jury in Washington, but that conviction was vacated on grounds of jury bias, and at a retrial in Philadelphia the two men were acquitted. Craig is an admirer of Edward Bennett Williams, saying that he was "the great lawyer of our generation."
In 1981, Craig was a member of the team that represented John W. Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan; Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Craig worked in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy as his chief defense, national security, and foreign policy aide from 1984 to 1988. Craig also defended Kennedy's nephew William Kennedy Smith on charges of assault; William Kennedy Smith had earlier been acquitted on rape charges in 1991.
Craig also served as chairman of the International Human Rights Law Group (later Global Rights).
In 1996, Craig was offered the post of White House Counsel by Bill Clinton, but Craig declined.Eisler, p. 275. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appointed Craig to the post of Director of Policy Planning at the State Department in 1997. Craig served in that post from June 1997 to 1998. As policy planning director, Craig served as a senior advisor to Albright and led the State Department's internal think tank. In October 1997, Albright gave Craig the additional post of Special Coordinator for Tibetan Affairs, in order "to focus attention on China's suppression of Tibet's cultural and religious traditions."
Craig worked in the White House during the Clinton administration from 1998 to 1999, holding the title of Assistant to the President and special counsel. Craig's old friend and law partner Kendall was Clinton's personal attorney. Craig was brought on specifically to coordinate the White House's defense of Clinton during impeachment proceedings against him. Termed the "quarterback" by Clinton, Craig worked from the West Wing and oversaw legal, political, congressional, and public relations aspects of the defense, reporting regularly to Clinton and consulting with John Podesta, the White House chief of staff. However, Craig claimed in an interview with PBS Frontline in July 2000 that Podesta was the one who recruited him and that Podesta told him that the White House needed a "coordinator quarterback." He also stated that he mainly coordinated with Podesta and that "I could name to John ten other lawyers in America that could do the job as well, if not better." Craig also stated that he wanted to remain in the State Department and that when Podesta first asked him to be the lawyer, he told him "Forgive me, John, if I'm not enthusiastic about the idea."
Craig's style was collegial in nature and he earned the respect of other White House staffers, although there was tension with then-White House Counsel Charles Ruff; according to The Washington Post, "each man behaved as if he were the one in charge" and the two had different professional styles. Ruff, Kendall, and Craig were three members of a five-member team of lawyers defending the president; the other two were Cheryl D. Mills and Dale Bumpers.
Craig then returned to private practice at Williams & Connolly as a partner. During the Elián González affair in 2000, Craig represented Juan Miguel Gonzáles, the Cuban father of six-year-old Elián González, in an international child custody dispute involving "the volatile field of Cuban-American relations" which ended with the boy's return to Cuba.Greg Craig Discusses the Elian Gonzalez Custody Battle (transcript of April 22, 2000 CNN interview).
Other high-profile clients represented by Craig while at Williams & Connolly include Richard Helms, the ex-director of Central Intelligence who was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA's role in removing Salvador Allende; UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. He reported earning a salary of $1.7 million from the firm in 2008.
Obama presidential campaign Craig met Barack and Michelle Obama for the first time in 2003, at the home of Vernon Jordan, a close friend of the Clintons, and the then-Illinois state senator impressed Craig.Eisler, Masters of the Game, p. 273. Despite close ties to the Clintons, Craig urged Obama to run for president, and became an informal foreign policy adviser to him. In March 2007, Craig publicly declared his support for Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary; because of his close ties to the Clintons, this attracted widespread attention.
In summer 2008, during the presidential campaign, Obama decided to support legislation (specifically, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) for granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless NSA wiretapping program. This angered many Democrats, because it was a reversal of Obama's earlier vow during the primary campaign to oppose such legislation and to filibuster against it. In his role as an advisor to the Obama campaign, Craig defended Obama's reversal, and said that Obama "concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire." This was incorrect, as FISA itself has no expiration date. Journalist Glenn Greenwald criticized Craig for the "flat-out false" statement. However, in an interview with Greenwald, Craig said that, in explaining to Risen why Obama intended to compromise, he meant to say that certain existing warrants, which had issued under recently expired provisions of FISA, would soon expire themselves unless compromise could be reached on a pending broad amendment of FISA. Said Craig, Obama concluded it was better to compromise.
During the campaign, Craig "seemed on a mission to destroy Hillary's political future." He emerged as "an outspoken critic of Hillary's foreign policy experience and ... a leading contender to be secretary of state after Obama got the nomination."
In late summer and fall 2008, Craig, a skilled trial lawyer, assumed the role of John McCain in Obama's preparations for the presidential debates. The campaign expected "that McCain would condescend to Obama as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie" and Craig played his role as such. Craig-as-McCain "glowered" at Obama in debate prep, saying, "Do not lecture me about the war. Do not tell me how to deploy men in combat. I was flying a jet over Vietnam when you were in grade school." Obama was tutored to remain unflinching and counterattack by listing McCain's past misjudgments. In the 2004 presidential election, Craig played a similar role in preparing John Kerry for the debates; Craig played George W. Bush in practice sessions.
White House Counsel in Obama administration
In its November 2008 issue, shortly before the 2008 presidential election, the ABA Journal speculated that Craig might be named Secretary of State in an Obama administration. Craig also reportedly hoped for that position or another foreign policy post in the Obama administration, which did not materialize. Obama ultimately appointed Craig to serve as his first White House Counsel. Craig served in that post from January 2009 to January 2010.