The U.S. Department of Justice today announced the arrest of an alleged agent of the Iranian government, who has been charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”). The defendant is an Iranian political scientist, living in the United States as a permanent resident. The Justice Department alleges that for years he has engaged … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
On Wednesday, December 16, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sought, and failed to achieve, unanimous consent to pass legislation that would have granted significant new powers to the Department of Justice to enforce compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In objecting to passage, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said that the Senate should “take a step … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice’s FARA Unit has publicly posted, for the first time, a set of FARA determination letters. A determination letter is the Unit’s formal opinion on whether an entity under scrutiny by the Department is required to register under FARA. As far as we can tell, the release was done quietly, without public … Continue Reading
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 Department … Continue Reading
The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are reverberating in every sector of the global economy, from life sciences to transportation, retail to manufacturing, financial services to sports and entertainment. As federal, state, and local governments attempt to blunt the pandemic’s public health and economic effects, many companies are frantically working with government to seek the … Continue Reading
Following the Department of Justice’s announcement in March of an initiative to increase enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), the Department has rolled out a new e-file system for FARA registrations. Notably, the new system only applies to new registrants, although the Department indicated that it will transition existing registrants to the new … Continue Reading
On May 7, 2019, a federal District Court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that an American company, RM Broadcasting, must register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) for its agreement to broadcast radio programming from Rossiya Segodnya (meaning “Russia Today”), a Russian state-owned news agency. Although the decision … Continue Reading
The House Appropriations Committee has quietly directed the Department of Justice to issue new guidance on the commercial exemption to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) with respect to state-owned companies. The directive came in a Committee report accompanying legislation that provides funding for the Department for fiscal year 2020. The report was approved by … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice’s FARA Unit appears to have signaled a significant narrowing in the scope of a major FARA exemption that is especially important to private sector companies, including U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations. The apparent narrowing of FARA’s exemption for those who register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (“LDA”) appeared in an advisory … Continue Reading
Covington issued several client alerts in recent years warning of a rising tide of enforcement of the once-obscure Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (“FARA”). Signs of this trend emerged long before the recent, high-profile Special Counsel’s Office investigation. Nonetheless, there was persistent skepticism abroad in the land, particularly among businesses outside the lobbying industry, … Continue Reading
As the Foreign Agents Registration Act continues to receive national attention, an article in this quarter’s PLI Current journal describes the Justice Department’s increased focus on the statute. The article, authored by Covington’s Rob Kelner, Zack Parks, and Alex Langton, discusses the shifting FARA enforcement landscape, analyzes how the statute works, and addresses pending FARA … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice has begun informing persons who obtained Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) advisory opinions that it will “soon” publish on its website copies of advisory opinions issued since January 1, 2010. The opinions apparently will be redacted to remove the identities of the requesters and their clients. For years, the Department has … Continue Reading
In recent months, we have highlighted trends of increased enforcement and increasingly aggressive interpretation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by the Department of Justice. These trends are evidenced in the Justice Department’s announcement last week that the President of the Pakistan American League, Nasir Adhem Chaudhry of Maryland, had agreed to plead guilty for … Continue Reading
Washington is awash with lobbyists seeking to address new steel and aluminum tariffs, and other potential tariffs, on behalf of both foreign and domestic clients. Lobbying on trade issues in some circumstances may trigger Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) obligations. The connection between trade lobbying and FARA was the subject of close scrutiny several decades … Continue Reading
In recent months, Congress’s efforts to reform dramatically the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) have picked up steam. As we explained in our recent FARA guide, FARA is a complex and broadly worded criminal statute that requires any “agent of a foreign principal” to register with the Department of Justice and file detailed public reports … Continue Reading
Eighty years ago, Congress enacted the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”), requiring “foreign agents” to register with the Attorney General. As amended over the years, it applies broadly to anyone who acts on behalf of a “foreign principal” to, among other things, influence U.S. policy or public opinion. Until recently, it was a backwater of … Continue Reading
With the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the news and public awareness of this formerly obscure statute at an all-time high, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation last week to revise the statute significantly, including reversing a decision Congress made in 1995 to remove most private sector reporting from FARA and place it instead under … Continue Reading
The New York Times, earlier this month, reported that “secret ledgers” in Ukraine show $12.7 million in cash payments designated for former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort from Ukraine’s pro-Russian political party. Days later, the Associated Press reported that Manafort helped the pro-Russian party “secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying … Continue Reading
In a recent letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Department of Justice offered a rare public glimpse into the enforcement activities of the small unit in the Department that enforces the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Some of the details highlighted in the letter are consistent with observations that we have shared in this blog; … Continue Reading
Last week, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a report on the Foreign Agents Registration Act with an attention-grabbing title: “Loopholes, Filing Failures, and Lax Enforcement: How the Foreign Agents Registration Act Falls Short.” The tone of the title was echoed in several news reports, including in The Hill (“Foreign lobbying enforcement ‘lax’”) and … Continue Reading
This weekend, the New York Times ran a lengthy investigative report on foreign government donations to U.S. think tanks. The story alleged that the foreign governments bought influence and paid for advocacy by some of the nation’s most respected research institutions. The article outlined contributions from Norway, UAE, Qatar, Japan, and others to think tanks … Continue Reading
Two public relations firms have filed documents with the Department of Justice revealing that they provided public relations and media services in the United States for the government of Ecuador without being registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as that law requires. These firms are the latest in a long string of law … Continue Reading
Covington & Burling LLP today released new data showing that the Department of Justice has maintained an increased level of Foreign Agents Registration Act audits,and settled into a consistent pattern of conducting 15 audits of FARA registrants each fiscal year. In each of the last four years, the Department of Justice’s FARA office has conducted 15 audits of FARA registrants, we reported at Covington’s … Continue Reading
