The Foreign Connection

Foreigners are barred from directly giving money to American politicians and political parties. But it turns out, there’s a legal way around that. It involves well-connected middlemen in the U.S., PR firms, and lobbyists, acting as foreign agents. They’re paid huge sums to get foreigners access to U.S. government officials that most Americans will never have. They may even help write our laws and direct your tax dollars to foreign interests. And when so many are talking about a foreign issue, for example, Russia, you can bet foreign agents are in the background pulling strings. For the past eight months, we’ve been examining The Foreign Connection to Russia and Ukraine.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act was passed in 1938 after an American got caught doing PR in the United States for the German Nazis.

Today, Americans who act as so-called “foreign agents” must file papers disclosing their work to the Justice Department. Lydia Dennett is an investigator with the watchdog Project on Government Oversight.

http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/the-foreign-connection