Proposed Legislation Would Further Combat Foreign Influence in the US

US media is report­ing on poten­tial new US leg­is­la­tion to com­bat for­eign influ­ence in the coun­try. Accord­ing to a Politi­co report:

Sep­tem­ber 23, 2022 The past few days have seen a flur­ry of new bills intro­duced with the goal of shed­ding more light on for­eign influ­ence efforts in the U.S. (rel­a­tive­ly speak­ing, at least). In addi­tion to a pro­pos­al from Sens. Gary Peters (D‑Mich.) and Chuck Grass­ley (R‑Iowa) that would intro­duce a new lay­er of over­sight on lob­by­ists seek­ing to take advan­tage of FARA’s Lob­by­ing Dis­clo­sure Act exemp­tion, a bipar­ti­san quin­tet of sen­a­tors intro­duced anoth­er bill that would revoke that exemp­tion and one oth­er for oper­a­tives work­ing on behalf of U.S. adversaries.

— The Pre­vent­ing Adver­sary Influ­ence, Dis­in­for­ma­tion and Obscured For­eign Financ­ing Act, or PAID OFF Act, is being spear­head­ed by Sen. John Cornyn (R‑Texas), along with Sens. Mar­co Rubio (R‑Fla.), Shel­don White­house (D‑R.I.), Bill Hager­ty (R‑Tenn.) and Deb Fis­ch­er (R‑Neb.). Under cur­rent law, those work­ing to fur­ther “the bona fide trade or com­merce” of a for­eign client, or whose work only indi­rect­ly pro­motes the pub­lic or polit­i­cal inter­ests of a for­eign gov­ern­ment or polit­i­cal par­ty, are exempt from reg­is­ter­ing as for­eign agents. So are those reg­is­tered to lob­by under the more opaque report­ing require­ments of the LDA.

— But Cornyn’s bill would require reg­is­tra­tion under FARA — even under those cir­cum­stances — for lob­by­ists rep­re­sent­ing clients based in coun­tries deemed by the Com­merce Depart­ment to be for­eign adver­saries, a list that cur­rent­ly com­pris­es Chi­na, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Rus­sia and Venezuela, head­ed by Nicolás Maduro, who the Biden admin­is­tra­tion doesn’t rec­og­nize as the legit­i­mate leader.

Read the rest here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) exten­sive­ly cov­ers issues relat­ing to the For­eign Agent Reg­is­tra­tion Act (FARA).