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Alex Langton

Alexandra Langton represents and counsels corporate, political, and individual clients in matters before government agencies and Congress. She also advises companies, PACs, nonprofits, and individuals on compliance with federal and state campaign finance, election, and lobbying laws.

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Last week, a bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators introduced the Retroactive Foreign Agents Registration Act (“RFARA”) in the U.S. Congress.  Led by Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the bill would amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) to clarify…

On Thursday, the Senate passed two bills — The Lobbying Disclosure Improvement Act (S. 264) and Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act (S. 289) — that attempt to increase disclosure of Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) activity through amendments to the Lobbying Disclosure Act (“LDA”).  The Senate passed versions of these…

The Department of Justice’s FARA Unit released several new advisory opinions in recent weeks that interpret the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) and its regulations.  While the newly published opinions addressed a number of topics, the FARA Unit’s broad reading of the FARA triggers and the jurisdictional scope of the statute are common themes.  One…

The Federal Election Commission has announced contribution limits for 2023-2024.  The new “per election” limits are effective for the 2023-2024 election cycle (November 9, 2022 – November 5, 2024), and the calendar year limits are effective January 1, 2023. The new limits represent the largest election cycle increase since the limits started being indexed for…

In 2018, Covington published the original version of its widely read primer on the Foreign Agents Registration Act, “FARA: A Guide for the Perplexed.” We have updated this primer periodically. Today, the firm released the latest edition of the primer, featuring new analysis of recent Department of Justice guidance regarding the scope of agency…

The CPA-Zicklin Index, which ranks companies’ political disclosure practices, has issued a new
report ranking companies in the Russell 1000 Index. This is a significant expansion of the Index,
which previously only covered companies from the S&P 500. The expansion will impact many
public companies that have not previously been subject to scrutiny by political…

The House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing on Tuesday on potential reform of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), the first FARA hearing by the House Judiciary Committee in over 30 years.

FARA is an arcane statute that requires “agents of foreign principals” engaged in certain…

The Department of Justice’s FARA Unit released several new advisory opinions today interpreting the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) and its regulations.  While the newly published opinions addressed a number of topics, the FARA Unit’s scrutiny of the activity of nonprofits was a prominent and recurring theme.

Many nonprofits, think tanks, universities, religious organizations, educational…

Last week, the Department of Justice’s FARA Unit released a curious advisory opinion.  The new opinion stated that it replaced an advisory opinion released by the Department in December 2019, and it revised the Department’s guidance on the scope of the lawyers’ exemption to FARA.  As far as we can tell, this is the first…

Following the Department of Justice’s announcement in March 2019 of an initiative to increase enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), the Department began rolling out a new electronic filing system for FARA registrations in September 2019. At that time, as Covington reported, the new system applied only to new registrants, and the…