Perspective: How Mueller revived a law that protects us all against foreign money
Attorney Gregory Craig arrives at U.S. District Court in Washington in October 2016. By Zephyr Teachout Zephyr Teachout is an associate professor of law at Fordham University. April 17 at 6:00 AM President Trump, whose failure to stop taking foreign government money while in office is a daily erosion of our democracy, may have accidentally done something to help rebuild our protections against foreign cash infecting policy.
But until the Mueller probe began, FARA reporting could not be relied on, because it wasn’t enforced. For half a century, in which a total of seven criminal FARA charges were brought, FARA was treated as supererogatory. That seems to be changing. Because of Mueller, seven people have been charged with FARA violations or lying about FARA-related issues.
When Mueller first started using FARA, I almost fell out of my chair; ask my law students. I had trained them in a practice I enjoy: reading foreign policy through the lens of FARA filings. The filings are online in a searchable database, and when agents do fully comply, it makes for some riveting reading. So when a foreign policy question is in the news, go to the FARA website and see who is representing whom. Or who might have been diligent enough to file.
Just last week, W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for a Ukrainian political party aligned with Russia. Also last week, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Craig. Craig — a product of Yale University, former senator Edward Kennedy and the Obama White House — is arguably at the apex of lobbyist Washington.
Foreign governments using American law firms to push policy transforms the diplomatic relationship. The privatization of diplomacy through foreign lobbying undermines an imperfect but powerful system and replaces it with a pay-to-play system. Foreign governments don’t rely exclusively on staff diplomats, because they know adding money to the relationship works.
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