Friday, April 28, 2000;  NewsMax.com

Craig's Background: Hinckley Defender, Aide to Ted Kennedy

Who is Gregory Craig, the controversial attorney representing the father of Elian Gonzalez?

Many people know him as a strident defender of scandal-plagued President Clinton during the impeachment trial. But few know Craig’s curious background: anti-war protester, defender of John Hinckley Jr., adviser to Ted Kennedy.

Craig might have biased the White House toward Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, or influenced Attorney General Janet Reno, critics say.

"It appeared that attorney Greg Craig was very much involved, and as perhaps he should be, but that he even had veto authority over the agreements or agreement that might be reached," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said this week. Clinton aides say Craig did not pressure Reno during the weeks of talks that preceded the Miami raid early last Saturday.

Liberal church fund

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, brought Craig to the attention of the United Methodist Church, which is paying him.

The liberal National Council of Churches administers a fund, supported by donations, to pay Craig, the church says. The church claims representing Elian’s father is a humanitarian act.

"The churches saw a need here and stepped in," said Carol Fouke, spokeswoman for the National Council of Churches. "The conspiracy thing sounds totally preposterous to me. It sounds really crazy."

The Methodist Church has raised about $50,000 and hopes to raise up to $100,000, with Craig billing at reduced rates, the church says.

Craig's connections to Clinton and Juan Miguel Gonzalez have raised eyebrows. Larry Klayman, chairman of the watchdog group Judicial Watch, has asserted that Clinton must have cut a deal with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

"It is shocking that Elian Gonzalez's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, is being represented by Bill and Hillary Clinton's lawyer and law firm," said a recent news release from Judicial Watch.

"It is certain that Juan Miguel Gonzalez cannot afford the legal fees of Williams & Connolly, and thus it is likely that they are being paid by Castro or someone on his behalf."

Background as a protester

During his student days at Harvard University, Craig led the anti-war movement. At Yale Law School, he met the Clintons.

A top Washington firm, Williams & Connolly, hired Craig. The firm's attorneys fight their battles publicly and politically as well as legally. Craig fit right in.

"Greg has a superior talent at the crossroads of policy, politics, media and law," said Robert Barnett, a firm partner who used to be President Clinton's lawyer. "That allows him to perform admirably in these difficult, multifaceted cases."

Defender of John Hinckley Jr.

An early example was the trial of John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Craig helped come up with Hinckley's insanity defense.

Craig has been active in Democratic foreign policy. At times he left the firm to take government jobs. In the mid-1980s he advised liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., on such controversies as the war in El Salvador.

"Greg's an excellent, great lawyer with sound judgment and good instincts," Kennedy said recently. "He did a brilliant job as a foreign policy adviser in my office in the 1980s. He traveled with me to South Africa in the battle against apartheid, and he was a key part of our successful effort in Congress to impose sanctions on South Africa." But not sanctions against Cuba.

Craig served on the boards of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Three years ago, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright chose him as director of policy planning, a key position at the State Department.

He coordinated policy on Tibet – a highly sensitive issue, especially because Clinton met twice with Chinese leaders.

Clinton impeachment scandal

Associates say Craig puts people at ease. This quality helped lead Clinton's defense team to enlist him in September 1998, as the House impeachment inquiry was firing up.

Craig invented a new defense for each arena. Before the House Judiciary Committee, Craig said Clinton might have done wrong but did not break the law. In a notorious statement, he said Clinton's testimony in the Paula Jones case was "evasive, incomplete, misleading, even maddening" but not perjury.

When that argument failed, Craig complained publicly the process had been unfair. "Nothing about this process has been bipartisan. Nothing about this process has won the confidence of the American people," he said.

At the impeachment trial in the Senate, Craig was not outstanding. He zeroed in on the weakest charges and ridiculed them – for example, that Clinton said he had had sexual encounters with Lewinsky "on certain occasions" when it was actually 11, a distinction few people could see.

Ultimately the defense won. To Leahy, Craig was an obvious choice for an attorney for Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

Master of media manipulation

The mainstream news media have lapped up Craig’s message: Elian should be with his father; the Miami relatives are violating the law and using Elian.

Public reaction indicates he has once again succeeded.

"He achieved the result his client wanted by deploying a public-relations strategy as well as a legal strategy," said attorney Ronald Weich, also a former Kennedy staffer.

That strategy was apparent last weekend, when an Associated Press photo showed a helmeted federal agent pointing a gun toward a terrified Elian during the raid. Within hours, Craig, who carried a disposable camera, released a photo of a smiling Elian reunited with his father.

Senate hearings next week and an appeals court session May 11 will pit the Justice Department against Elian's Miami relatives, and Juan Miguel Gonzalez – and Craig – could be right in the thick of things.