Path to Power
Craig was born in Norfolk, Va. but grew up in California, where his father was dean of students at Stanford University.
Craig attended Philips Exeter Academy, where he earned a reputation of being genuine. In a letter of recommendation, one teacher described him as “Adam before the fall.”
At Harvard University, Craig was one of the most vocal opponents of the Vietnam War. He graduated in 1967 and earned his master’s at Cambridge University in England before starting law school at Yale. It was in New Haven that he became friends with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her then-boyfriend, Bill Clinton. They would remain close for decades.
After graduating from law school in 1972, Craig accepted a position at Williams & Connolly, one of the most prestigious firms in Washington. At the firm, he was given several high-profile assignments including defending some reporters at the Washington Post Company in connection with the Watergate scandal. He also represented the first FBI agent to be indicted for illegal wiretapping and, in 1981, successfully won a not-guilty ruling for John Hinckley, who was charged with the attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, he went to Capitol Hill to serve as Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) senior adviser on defense, national security and foreign policy issues. He was a key player in getting economic sanctions imposed against apartheid South Africa.
Craig returned to Williams & Connolly in 1990, where he represented the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Treasury Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission in court.In 1990, he represented Sen. Kennedy as a witness in the rape trial of Kennedy’s nephew, William Kennedy Smith, in a Palm Beach court.
In 1997, he accepted a position as director of policy planning at the State Department for former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. There he focused on China’s treatment of Tibetan culture and religion, serving as a negotiator between the Dali Lama and the mainland government.
Clinton Impeachment
In 1998, as Clinton faced impeachment charges, he called on Craig to “quarterback” his defensive legal team as special White House counsel. Craig was initially reluctant to leave his State Department post, but said he felt compelled to serve his president. He pioneered the team’s successful legal strategy in which he argued that though Clinton’s conduct was morally wrong, he could not be impeached for it.
In 2000, Craig was back in private practice, representing the father of the five-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzales, and successfully arguing that the boy should be returned to the island nation. In 2006, he represented former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in the investigation of the Oil-for-Food program.
Craig first met Barack Obama at a speech when he was running for Senate in 2003. He saw in the young leader someone who could capture the youthful idealism he felt at Harvard in the 1960s. He was so enamored that friends teased he had “fallen in love.”
He bought Obama’s books — The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father — and met him a few more times, including a chance encounter on a Washington shuttle.
After he heard Obama speak in 2006, Craig set out to convince him to run for president in 2008. He and friend George Stevens raised money and buzz so persistently that Obama created a nickname for them: “the Kool-Aid boys.”
2008 Democratic Primary
During the 2008 Democratic primary — despite his previous good relationship with the Clintons — Craig played a key role in deflating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claims of experience, a move that shocked his former friends.
In one noteworthy instance, Craig sent a blistering memo systematically debunking Clinton’s argument that she had gained significant foreign policy experience while in the White House.
“The fact is, and this was established by the White House schedules, that she did not attend NSC meetings or routinely meet with the Secretary of State or the National Security Adviser,” Craig stated. “She did not routinely get briefed by the intelligence community, and there is no evidence that she participated or asserted herself in any of the crises that took place during the eight years of the Clinton presidency.”
But he also played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in convincing Hillary to endorse Obama once it was clear she had lost the Democratic presidential nod.
Craig spent four months prepping to portray Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2008 debates. He was named to Obama’s national security working group and was one of his closest foreign policy advisers.
In November 2008, he was selected as White House counsel. He faced his first challenge just weeks after the election, when Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) was charged with trying to trade Obama's Senate seat for political favors. Craig ran the administration's internal investigation, eventually concluding that no one had acted illegally or proposed a trade for the Senate seat.
Craig was also put in charge of the administration's attempts to close the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay. After criticism over his mismanagement of the task, he left the White House in December 2009.
Craig is also involved in politics on a local level. He has moderated debates among City Council candidates near his home in Northwest Washington.
