On Friday, June 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the lower court’s dismissal of a 2022 lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to compel casino magnate Stephen A. Wynn 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
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) started 2024 off with a major Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) enforcement announcement. Just last week, Barry Bennett and Douglas Watts, two longtime political consultants with deep...more
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 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
On January 24, 2023, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced the Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act in the 118th Congress. The group is led by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a longtime proponent of 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
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
On May 17, 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued in U.S. District Court in D.C. to compel Stephen A. Wynn to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)....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
As yet another example of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) increasing enforcement efforts with respect to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), DOJ recently unsealed a charge of conspiracy to violate FARA...more
10/26/2020
/ 1MDB ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Failure To Disclose ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Lobbying ,
National Security ,
Political Candidates ,
Registration Requirement ,
Trump Administration