Arlington, Virginia-based Politico ezine on August 16 published a 1,000-word story about the trial of former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, who is facing a felony charge of trying to mislead U.S.. Justice Department officials.
Doug Schoen, longtime political consultant to Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk, took the stand on Friday and provided new details in the case, which reveals unflattering ties between U.S. and Ukrainian leaders during the early 2010s, as well as attempts to misrepresent the imprisonment of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in October 2011.
"Schoen detailed an unusual aspect of Craig’s 2012 report examining the trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko: while the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice officially commissioned the review, most of the bill — which ran to more than $4 million — was secretly paid for by a Ukrainian oligarch, steel magnate Victor Pinchuk," Politico's Josh Gerstein writes.
Schoen, an advisor to the board of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, is no stranger to Ukraine, where he has made numerous appearances at the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum.
Context:
- In 2000, Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk hired Schoen on a $40,000 per month retainer. In 2004, Schoen introduced Pinchuk to Hillary Clinton. He also did work for the Clinton presidential campaign in 2008.
- Pinchuk donated $13.1 million to the Clinton Foundation in the years after Schoen's introduction. In 2011, Schoen registered as a foreign agent lobbying on behalf of Pinchuk. Between September 2011 and November 2012, Schoen arranged nearly a dozen meetings between Pinchuk and senior State Department officials, including Melanne Verveer.
- In September 2015, Pinchuk donated $150,000 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute video appearance by Donald Trump shown at a policy conference that year in Kyiv. Michael Cohen solicited Schoen for the donation from Pinchuk, which was the largest outside donation the Trump Foundation received that year. In March 2017, former Trump aide Monica Crowley registered as a foreign agent working for Pinchuk under Schoen's direction.
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