On September 19, a group of Republican Senators led by Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced the STRATEGIC Act of 2024 to combat Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence within the United...more
On September 4, 2024, two employees of the Russian state-funded media outlet RT (formerly known as Russia Today) were indicted in the Southern District of New York for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act...more
On Tuesday, September 3, 2024, Linda Sun, a former high-ranking official in New York State’s government, was arrested in Brooklyn and charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for allegedly acting as...more
Former government employee Sue Mi Terry has been arrested and indicted in New York for acting as an unregistered foreign agent of South Korea. Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, released the...more
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), former Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has been found guilty in his federal corruption case for, among other things, bribery, obstruction of justice, and acting as a...more
On July 10, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to present a briefing on DOJ’s strategy to combat Beijing’s...more
Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, are facing federal charges of bribery, money laundering, and violations of the ban against public officials serving as foreign agents required to register...more
Aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) continued last year, and that trend shows no signs of receding in 2024. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2023 filed its first affirmative civil...more
On October 3, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) FARA Unit published a number of new advisory opinions (AOs) offering guidance and further insight on the Department’s interpretation of certain FARA registration triggers and...more
10/26/2023
/ Advisory Opinions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Exemptions ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Foreign Governments ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Lobbying Disclosure Act ,
NGOs ,
Registration Requirement ,
U.S. Commerce Department ,
US State Departments
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, faces a superseding indictment filed in federal district court in New York alleging his involvement in acting as a foreign agent of Egypt and...more
10/16/2023
/ Bribery ,
Corruption ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Agriculture ,
Egypt ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Foreign Relations ,
Indictments ,
Lobbying
On July 11, 2023, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced the Retroactive Foreign Agents Registration Act (RFARA) in a continuing effort to bolster the transparency and accountability of foreign...more
On July 10, 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York announced the unsealing of an eight-count indictment against dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and Hunter Biden whistleblower Gal Luft, for allegedly...more
On April 27, 2023, a bipartisan group of senators led by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) reintroduced the Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act in the 118th Congress. The bill attempts to reform the Foreign...more
On March 28, 2023, The Honorable Lisa O. Monaco, Deputy Attorney General of the United States, provided remarks on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) forthcoming efforts to bolster national security in connection with the 2023...more
On February 15, 2023, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the Preventing Adversary Influence, Disinformation and Obscured Foreign Financing (PAID OFF) Act of 2023 in an effort to close registration loopholes in the Foreign...more
The trend in aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) enforcement continued in 2022 with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first affirmative civil enforcement lawsuit in over 20 years and a number...more
1/20/2023
/ China ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Lobbying ,
Lobbying Disclosure Act ,
Notification Requirements ,
Registration Requirement ,
Russia ,
Transparency
Please join us in a discussion on current developments regarding FARA, where we will cover:
- An overview of FARA, including reporting requirements and exemptions;
- Recent DOJ enforcement efforts and legislative...more
In recent weeks, several proposals to increase the reporting requirements for foreign agents have been introduced that would address perceived exemption “loopholes” in the Foreign Registration Act (FARA) and promote greater...more
On June 16, 2022, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Fighting Foreign Influence Act, which would impose a range of new disclosure requirements and limitations on think tanks,...more
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) continued to make headlines in 2021 as enforcement and modernization of the law remained a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) priority. DOJ maintained its focus on enforcement,...more
1/6/2022
/ Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) ,
American Bar Association (ABA) ,
Consultants ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Foreign Governments ,
Political Contributions ,
Public Comment ,
Registration ,
Registration Requirement ,
Transparency
On December 13, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) National Security Division issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) and request for public comments regarding clarification and modernization of...more
On this episode, Rob Walker is joined by Dan Pickard and Tessa Capeloto to discuss recent developments as to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), including an ABA task force report on FARA and certain policy...more
On June 10, 2021, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia issued an indictment of American entertainer and businessman Prakazrel “Pras” Michel and Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho on 12 counts, including four for...more
According to media reports, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating Blue Star Strategies’ work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. News of the investigation is consistent with observations that the...more
FARA is a disclosure statute that seeks to ensure that all persons acting politically or quasi-politically on behalf of foreign entities in the United States properly disclose their activities to the U.S. government. In...more
5/13/2021
/ Continuing Legal Education ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Enforcement ,
Exemptions ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Foreign Entities ,
Foreign Governments ,
National Security ,
Registration Requirement ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Webinars