Mueller’s ‘Foreign Agent’ Prosecutions May Lead to Probes of Green Groups

1. By invoking a law regulating foreign agents to pursue prosecution of former Trump campaign officials, special counsel Robert Mueller opened the door to more intense scrutiny of some U.S. environmental groups, according to legal analysts who say China and Russia use such groups to influence America’s energy policy.
2. Special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation paves the way for the Justice Department to use the Foreign Agents Registration Act to probe green groups' ties to hostile foreign governments, one legal observer says.
3. But because FARA has not been strictly enforced, little case history and precedent exist for investigations into the actions of possible foreign agents who decline to disclose their activities, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit government watchdog, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
4. During a December hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Fitton commented on how some actions of nonprofit advocacy groups and their relationships with foreign governments could activate requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
5. If there is genuine concern on the part of Mueller, the media, and other members of Congress about Russian meddling in American affairs, the Arizona Republican said, then environmental advocacy groups working to disrupt American energy while receiving financial support from the Russian government should be subjected to investigations.
6. “Either the special counsel’s invocation of the FARA law represents remarkably selective policing of possible unregistered activity on behalf of foreign governments, depending upon one's political associations, or signals that DOJ has decided to take this law seriously and has noticed, e.g., congressional probes into other potential violations,” said Horner, who filed the FOIA lawsuits on behalf of the Institute for Energy Research.
7. If the Mueller probe has any real benefit, it is that it opened the door for the Justice Department to employ FARA as a basis to investigate green groups that are undermining our country and aiding socialist/communist regimes,” lawyer Mark Fitzgibbons told The Daily Signal.
8. During his exchange with Fitton, Gosar said environmental advocacy groups that oppose natural gas development and the process of hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) have received millions of dollars in grant money that congressional investigators traced back to the Russian government.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/02/20/muellers-foreign-agent-prosecutions-may-lead-to-probes-of-green-groups/