New York Times — January 17, 2019
“WASHINGTON — A global New York-based law firm has agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle a Justice Department investigation into whether its work for a Russia-aligned Ukrainian government violated lobbying laws.
The investigation stems from work that the firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, did with Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman. The case overlaps with the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
As part of the settlement, the law firm agreed to register retroactively as a foreign agent for Ukraine in addition to paying the government $4.6 million, representing the money it earned from its work in Ukraine.
The settlement between the firm and the Justice Department, which was made public on Thursday, is the latest indication that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry and related investigations are fundamentally challenging the lucrative but shadowy foreign-lobbying industry that has thrived in Washington.
AXIOS — February 15,2019
Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller said in a new court filing that President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort should serve between 19.5 and 24.5 years in prison for the financial crimes for which he was convicted in a Virginia court last August.
“In the end, Manafort acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law, and deprived the federal government and various financial institutions of millions of dollars. The sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes, and serve to both deter Manafort and others from engaging in such conduct.”
Why it matters: This would essentially be a life sentence for the 69-year-old Manafort. He is also facing a separate case in D.C., where a judge recently ruled that he had violated his plea agreement with Mueller and could therefore lose out on any potential leniency he might be offered.
NEW YORK TIMES — February 2, 2018
“Mr. Mueller’s inquiry threatens the delicate balance that Skadden has struck between lucrative sources of revenue. The firm has made huge profits from corporate work for image-conscious United States companies, while also representing riskier international clients, such as Russian oligarchs and companies with close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin and former Soviet states.
Skadden’s work advising controversial foreign clients was probably prompted by the same aggressive risk-taking that fueled the firm’s rise from scrappy upstart to top-grossing legal giant with a range of practice areas, said Lincoln Caplan, a research scholar at Yale Law School and the author of “Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire.”
“The mentality is that Skadden wouldn’t be afraid of doing something like this, if there was a chance to utilize their skills and status to take advantage of what sounds like a very lucrative business, and they saw no legal or ethical proscription against their taking on the matter,” he said.
Skadden’s work is part of a trend in recent years of lobbyists and lawyers earning increasingly larger paydays by marketing their connections in Washington to foreign politicians, countries and companies willing to pay hefty fees to burnish their reputations in the United States and on the international stage