The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S3306-S3307 on June 11, 2019.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, for nearly 2 years Special Counsel Mueller's investigation captivated Washington. Most of the media reporting focused on speculation and false allegations of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. This reporting was fueled by critics eager to all but guarantee the President's guilt. After a very exhaustive investigation--and, of course, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars being spent by the Mueller investigation--
many of those same critics still can't accept that Mueller and his investigative team of Democratic donors found no collusion or crime.
The continuing political noise over the last 2 years, however, risks drowning out critical siren warnings of another real threat--self-
interested and surreptitious foreign influence in our political discourse. Mueller's team indicted dozens of Russians for a scheme to sow discord in American politics through our social media and the release of hacked emails. However, not enough attention has been paid to foreign interests secretly enlisting American cutouts to directly influence our laws, our public policies, and, most importantly, public opinion to destroy our social cohesion.
This is a very serious problem that should send shivers down the spine of anyone in government who meets with lobbyists. If lobbyists or public relations firms are pushing policy preferences at the behest of foreign powers and foreign interests, we ought to know about it.
This week I introduced legislation to strengthen and also fine-tune enforcement authorities to better expose clandestine foreign influence campaigns. My bipartisan bill, the Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act, will encourage greater compliance with a very often ignored requirement for lobbyists working on behalf of foreign entities to tell the U.S. people who they are working for. It accomplishes this by creating critical updates to one of our Nation's oldest lobbying disclosure laws.
Way back in 1938, Congress first passed a bill to accomplish a way to expose this foreign influence in America, particularly within our government. That bill passed in 1938 is called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The bill was meant to unmask Nazi propaganda and identify foreign attempts to influence Congress and the American public. Until recently, however, this Foreign Agents Registration Act has been seldom used.
Now--get this--only 15 violators of this act have been criminally prosecuted since 1966, and 1966 was the date when this law was last updated. Of course, now I am trying to update it again. About half of these prosecutions, of the 15, stem from the work of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, though that is not due to the lack of foreign influence efforts to affect our Federal decision making.
As part of my oversight efforts, I first raised concerns about the shoddy Foreign Agent Registration Act enforcement in 2015. Now, I did this before Donald Trump launched his Presidential campaign. I did it when a former Clinton White House staffer and a lawyer for a Georgian political party failed to register as foreign agents.
I also raised concerns about work for Ukranians by Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group, and about reports that the Democratic National Committee worked with Ukraine to undermine the Trump campaign. I raised concerns when the firm behind the discredited Steele dossier failed to register for its lobbying work to repeal U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Now, as it turned out, that is the same lobbying effort that was behind the bait and switch at the Trump Tower in June of 2016. I don't have to go into details about that Trump Tower meeting. That is a very famous and well documented meeting.
I even subpoenaed Manafort to testify at the Judiciary Committee hearing on lax Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement, and I praised Mueller for dusting off the law that had been ignored by lobbyists and prosecutors for so long because they really didn't want the American public to know that they were working for a foreign country.
Now, that may sound like that is something illegal. What is illegal is that you don't tell the American people whom you are working for. It is not, as far as I know, illegal to work for the interests of another country, as they might have some legitimate interest in our policymaking, but the point is that the public ought to know whom they are working for.
Now, I talked about subpoenaing Manafort, and in the end Manafort, his colleague Rick Gates, and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig were among those indicted for violating this Foreign Agents Registration Act.
My Foreign Agents Registration Act oversight activities have been done without regard to power, party, or privilege. I happen to have a reputation as an equal-opportunity overseer to see that the laws are faithfully enforced, and I believe that this very act of registration of foreign agents ought to be better enforced and enforced equally.
Now, all of this talk about this law may have started as a creative tactic by an aggressive team of investigators to pressure Manafort into spilling nonexistent details on the Trump campaign, but Mueller's probe had the positive effect of shining a light on the Justice Department's registration unit on the enforcement of this law of 1938, and it also has shown light, as well, on a legion of lobbyists who work for foreign agents who had flown under the radar for very many years.
Now, because of all this transparency, the charges spurred a rush on K Street. New foreign agent registrations increased by 50 percent from 2016 to 2017. Now, I can't believe a single one of those people registering of that 50 percent increase in registration didn't realize this law existed, but they probably thought they could get away with something that most people have been getting away with for decades.
Now, Attorney General Barr also recently pledged to prioritize enforcement of that law as he heads up the Justice Department, and, of course, we all ought to be pleased to hear that from the Attorney General.
However, even though the 1938 law is finally being taken more seriously, that law still lacks key enforcement authorities needed to investigate and hold accountable covert conveyors of foreign interests.
The 1938 law also includes a broad exemption for anyone already registered with Congress as a lobbyist. It is time that we ask whether this exemption continues to serve the public interest and operates as intended.
Moreover, even those registered under the 1938 law aren't required to clearly disclose that they are working on behalf of a foreign government or entity if they happen to be meeting with Capitol Hill or administration officials. Policymakers need to know when these meetings are driven by foreign interests.
Now, getting back to the legislation I am introducing, this bipartisan bill, based on my oversight work, grants Federal investigators a lot of new tools, such as civil investigative demand authority to help the Justice Department gain access to material needed to identify covert foreign influence and improve the act's compliance. This bill strengthens the Justice Department's hand in rooting out those who attempt to shield their operation from the American people and policymakers.
We have to ensure accountability, and to accomplish that goal, my bill provides key controls on who in the Justice Department can use the new authority, and it provides due process protection. This authority will also sunset after 5 years, requiring the Justice Department to demonstrate that the law has been appropriately used if Congress is to reauthorize it.
In addition, the bill requires a review of the new authority by the Justice Department's inspector general.
This bipartisan bill also improves deterrence by strengthening the penalties that scofflaws face for violating the law's registration and disclosure requirements.
It also requires foreign agents to immediately disclose their clients. That way, policymakers--including those of us in the Senate--
can evaluate their positions in light of those associations.
Even my own office has, in the past, been targeted by secretive lobbying efforts orchestrated by foreign powers, whose policy interests were diametrically opposed to those of our great country. I saw through the ploy, but anyone in government should have full awareness into who they are meeting with and why those meetings are taking place.
The bill requires the Justice Department to craft a comprehensive enforcement strategy for the law to better coordinate agency efforts, to analyze the law's current exemptions and fee structure, and to promote transparency by ensuring the ongoing proactive release of the law's advisory opinions.
Finally, it establishes a review of the Lobbying Disclosure Act exemptions to determine whether and to what extent it has been abused to conceal foreign influence.
Legitimate interests engaging in legitimate conduct shouldn't bear an unnecessary burden. Hopefully, in the way we have written this law, that unnecessary burden is avoided. But, at the same time, we must also be certain that this exemption hasn't created an opportunity for abuse by those who wish to operate in the dark. With this increase in registration under the 1938 law, we find that a lot of people must have been operating in the dark.
This bill is a product of my years-long oversight into the 1938 law as well as bipartisan cooperation. It reflects a consensus that the curtain over foreign influence has to be peeled back.
This year, compared to the bill I introduced last year--and we had competition with other bills last year--we have been able to find a bipartisan effort that combines what other Members' thinking is on the subject. So I am happy to announce that Senators Feinstein, Cornyn, Shaheen, Rubio, and Young are cosponsors at the time of this introduction, and I hope that other Members will join us as well.
The Mueller investigation might not have brought the legal charges that many of the President's critics were hoping for. They were hoping for an excuse to get President Trump out of office. But at least that investigation by Mueller was a powerful indictment of our government's lax enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and also of our willingness to take the bait of foreign powers seeking to wreak havoc on our civic discourse.
In the wake of the Mueller investigation, it is on us, right here in the Congress, to keep our eye on the ball. It is on us to strengthen our defenses against hidden foreign influence and preserve the voice of the American people. I believe with the introduction of the bipartisan Foreign Agents Disclosure and Registration Enhancement Act that we will accomplish these ends.
Again, I welcome a lot of additional cosponsorship of my colleagues. This is definitely a good government piece of legislation.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
