Are You a Foreign Agent? [More with McGlinchey, Ep. 21
On December 20, 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a long-awaited notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to revise regulations under FARA, three years after an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking sought input on...more
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) proposes to materially revise the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). On December 19, 2024, DOJ issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)...more
On November 18, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit published an advisory opinion that appears to severely narrow the statute’s most important exemptions. In the opinion, the...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
With recent high-profile prosecutions continuing to draw attention to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and related political laws, and a number of notable announcements by Department of Justice (DOJ) officials at a...more
On October 12, 2022, a federal district judge in the District of Columbia, Judge James E. Boasberg, dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) civil complaint against businessman Steve Wynn, which sought to compel Wynn to...more
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) determined approach to identifying violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) shows no signs of slowing down. An inadvertently disclosed warrant revealed that John Allen, a...more
On June 7, 2022, an affidavit inadvertently made public details of an investigation into retired General John R. Allen for allegedly failing to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) after acting as an agent...more
The Foreign Agents Registration Act was put under the microscope recently during a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. As explained in a previous post, FARA...more
A. Basic Overview of Statute - The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq. (FCPA), makes it unlawful for U.S. persons and entities and others who act within the jurisdiction of the...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has set jury selection to begin September 7, 2022, in regard to the prosecution of Thomas Barrack, a friend and former key adviser to ex-U.S. President Donald...more
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), 22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq., is a federal statute passed in 1938 that was originally intended to combat the dissemination of Nazi and Communist propaganda within the United States. FARA...more
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
Following its efforts in recent years to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (22 U.S.C. 611 et seq. (FARA)) more rigorously and transparently, for the first time in nearly 15 years, the U.S. Department of...more
In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed charges against eight individuals accused of operating “repatriation squads” in the United States on behalf of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It announced...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
On January 19, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a complaint charging Iranian-born U.S. green card holder Kaveh Afrasiabi with acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent for Iran in...more
The latest development in the Department of Justice’s “China Initiative” occurred earlier this month, as the DOJ unsealed an 11-count indictment charging two Chinese nationals with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars’...more
In the wake of a global law firm entering into a multimillion-dollar settlement for failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA or the act), other law firms have...more
With the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) giving increased attention to Foreign Agent Registration Act (“FARA”) enforcement, companies that have international business operations or otherwise deal with foreign governments and...more
U.S. is increasing its enforcement to monitor foreign interests. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced increased enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires public...more
On March 6, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers announced that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has designated a new deputy chief to lead the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) unit and that...more
After decades in which the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) received relatively little attention, a confluence of recent events has given the statute newfound prominence. Together, these developments compound the...more
• A September 2016 audit report by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General recommended more transparency regarding compliance and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). • To...more
One consequence of the ongoing Russia investigation against the current administration is increased focus and probable enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). For Washington insiders, FARA was a known...more