Democracy in Danger: A Foreign Lobbying Law Rendered Toothless Once More
On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi scaled back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law whose purpose is to protect Americans from covert foreign operations attempting to influence U.S. public opinion, law and policy.
While FARA does not bar foreign lobbying, it requires individuals and entities engaging in political activities on behalf of foreign principals to register with the DOJ and to maintain and periodically disclose their clients, activities, and financial compensation.
By scaling back FARA enforcement, AG Bondi’s directive will effectively reduce transparency around the flow of foreign money into Washington, with potentially dire consequences for American democracy.
FARA’s Long Road to Aggressive Enforcement
FARA was originally enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi and Soviet propagandists. A 1966 amendment to the law, however, shifted FARA’s focus from propagandists to political lobbyists. From 1966 to 2016, the DOJ decided to pursue a policy of voluntary compliance over criminal prosecution. Unfortunately, this relaxed approach largely failed to incentivize compliance, and resulted in numerous untimely registrations and incomplete disclosures.
Aggressive FARA enforcement finally began during the first Trump administration with the launch of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election. Within two years, the DOJ filed seven FARA cases, most notoriously against Paul Manafort for his unregistered work as a foreign agent on behalf of Ukraine. Spurred by the increased attention, from 2016 to 2022, FARA registrations increased by 50%. The DOJ expanded its FARA Unit and continued to aggressively enforce FARA during the Biden administration. In 2022, the DOJ filed a record number of FARA charges, and in 2024, conducted a record number of inspections.
The need for transparency has never been more apparent. As detailed in Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World (Michel, 2024), since 2016, 1040 foreign principals have registered with the DOJ and have spent $4.1 billion on foreign lobbying efforts in the U.S., with notably massive growth in expenditures from Chinese and Russian sources.
At this crucial moment in time for foreign lobbying compliance, AG Bondi’s directive returns FARA to its pre-2017 laxity, curtailing enforcement in three ways:
Reduced Scope: The DOJ has been directed to issue criminal charges only for “conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”
Reduced Intensity: The FARA Unit has been directed to deprioritize criminal prosecution in favor of “civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives and public guidance.”
Reduced Resources: The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which played a significant role in enforcing FARA, has been disbanded.
Renewed Cover for Foreign Influence Peddlers
Aggressive FARA enforcement provides much-needed transparency to the shadow industry of foreign influence peddling that seeks to impact foreign policy, criminal investigations, and American public opinion. For example:
(2023) Prakazrel Michel, a Grammy-winning rapper-producer, was convicted in 2023 for acting as an unregistered foreign agent. He funneled millions of dollars in campaign contributions to President Barack Obama’s camp in 2012 on behalf of Jho Low, a Malaysian financier and fugitive now wanted for his role in embezzling $4.5 billion from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
(2020) Elliot Broidy, deputy finance chairman of the Republic National Committee, pled guilty in 2020 for engaging in a back-channel lobbying campaign to convince President Trump, the Attorney General, and other senior Trump government officials to drop the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investigation against Jho Low. Had Broidy succeeded, he would have received up to $75 million from Low.
(2019) Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, a global corporate law firm, at the behest of Paul Manafort and on behalf of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, produced a whitewashing report for a public relations campaign to influence American policy and public opinion towards the Ukrainian government. In January 2019, the DOJ reached a settlement with Skadden. Skadden retroactively registered as a foreign agent and forfeited the $4.6 million it had earned in fees to the U.S. Treasury.
As these examples show, in the absence of aggressive enforcement, government officials and the American public are at risk of remaining in the dark to the extent and nature of foreign influence operations in the U.S.
AG Bondi, herself a former lobbyist who acted on behalf of Qatar, has largely stripped FARA of its enforcement might, thereby rendering this foreign lobbying law effectively toothless once more.
Though FARA violations are subject to a five-year statute of limitations, can we realistically hope that this will be sufficient to incentivize compliance over the coming years?
Legal Research Associate, TRACE