First Amendment
Matthew Petti | 9.9.2024 3:00 PM
2024 could be called the Year of FARA. Once an obscure and rarely enforced lobbying regulation, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) has become the center of several explosive political scandals this year. Last week, the FBI accused Russian agents of funneling $10 million to unwitting conservative podcasters and indicted a former deputy chief of staff to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for acting as a Chinese agent.
Earlier this year, Sen. Bob Menendez (D–N.J.) was convicted of taking bribes from Egyptian military intelligence. Congressional Democrats are now looking into whether Egypt did the same to Donald Trump's campaign. Meanwhile, the authorities have indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D–Texas) for taking bribes from a Mexican bank and the Azerbaijani state oil company. And they're investigating New York City Mayor Eric Adams' staff for taking campaign money from Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan.
All of these cases involved cloak-and-dagger conspiracies, allegedly funneling money to buy off political figures in secret. It's the kind of thing Americans think of when they hear the term "foreign agent"—and the kind of thing that should probably be illegal. But espionage and deception are not the only activities covered by FARA, and "foreign influence" doesn't just refer to foreign agents on American soil.
Practically, the question is how to separate Americans being ordered or tricked by a foreign government from Americans doing things of their own accord. Philosophically, the question is whether stamping out "foreign influence" is possible or desirable in a free society—especially one that is so heavily involved in the rest of the world.
Many of the attempts to infiltrate U.S. politics aren't coming from U.S. rivals. While China, Russia, and Iran have done their fair share of dirty tricks, American allies and partners have spent a lot of effort, both legally and illegally, trying to influence Washington. Many of these attempts come from the Middle East, where U.S. policy is constantly shifting, and where many U.S. partners are at odds with each other.
FARA, passed in 1938 amid fears of Nazi infiltration, requires anyone who conducts "political activities for" or "represents the interests of" a foreign power to register with the Department of Justice. During the Cold War, the U.S. government tried to use the law to cast the writer W. E. B. Du Bois as a Soviet agent for his anti-war positions. After he was acquitted, the Department of Justice took a much more limited approach.
Today, most registered foreign agents are lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations firms working for friendly countries. In 2022 and 2023, registered foreign agents gave $14.3 million in campaign contributions to American politicians, according to a report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, where I used to work as a researcher.
The U.S. government also uses the term "foreign influence" to describe propaganda created abroad and aimed at American audiences, whether or not American agents were involved in making or spreading it. There is a long history of the U.S. government trying to stamp out this kind of propaganda—and an equally long history of rulings that Americans have the First Amendment right to consume whatever media they want.
In fact, the first time the Supreme Court had overruled Congress on First Amendment grounds concerned "foreign influence." In the 1960s, a law required the postmaster general to screen the mail for "communist political propaganda." When former American........