Dara Lindenbaum, Senior Counsel at Sandler Reiff, is representing Stacey Abrams in a close election for the governor of Georgia. You can read about it here.
Aryeh Lightstone, a current State Department official, helped Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump, arrange meetings with U.S. senators and Angolan officials in early 2017. However, neither Lightstone nor Broidy registered as a foreign agent. Some legal experts argue that Lightstone and Broidy should have registered with the government for the Angolan meetings, under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Joshua Rosenstein comments,
“Arranging meetings between a foreign government and U.S. government officials to discuss the foreign policy of the U.S. vis-à-vis a foreign government or to discuss the relationship between the U.S. and the foreign county would in my view count as political activities requiring registration,” said Joshua Rosenstein, a FARA specialist at the law firm Sandler Reiff.
You can read the rest of the article here.
An increasing number of public companies in the past several years have voluntarily opted to disclose corporate donations above and beyond what is required by the law. Josh Rosenstein comments on the implications reporting these contributions may have for companies.
“If you disclose that you have given to a [social welfare organization] or other independent expenditure group, and that intermediary in turn supports a candidate on the far right on the far left, there has to be and there is a concern that your business will take a hit, either by a boycott or otherwise, simply because the country is so polarized,” he said.
In addition, Rosenstein said, when a company plays in the political-contribution space and opts to make public disclosures about that involvement, it should have a robust compliance program that ensures it follows its own obligations regarding political spending and involves political law experts, whether in-house or outside.
You can read the rest of the article here.*
*Please note there is a paywall.
Federal prosecutors have stepped up their investigation of prominent Washington attorney Gregory Craig for work he conducted at his former law firm on behalf of the Ukrainian government in 2012, an effort coordinated by Paul Manafort.
The investigation of Craig — a White House counsel for President Barack Obama — along with lobbyists Vin Weber and Tony Podesta, has shaken Washington’s lobbying and legal community, which until recently had faced little scrutiny of its representation of foreign clients.
“There is a rising level of concern, particularly from law firms providing services to foreign governments,” said Joshua Ian Rosenstein, an expert on foreign lobbying registration compliance at the Sandler Reiff law firm.
Since Manafort’s plea deal, Rosenstein said the volume of calls he has received on the topic has spiked.
“New and existing clients are asking very specific questions now” about the rules and regulations governing representation of foreign governments, he said.
You can read the rest of the article here.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld a rule by a federal judge last month that struck down the Federal Election Commission regulation that said independent political groups only had to name donors when their gifts were linked to specific sets of TV ads or mailers.
The Supreme Court’s decision means that groups making independent expenditures to support or oppose candidates running for Congress this fall may have a legal obligation to disclose their donors, even if they could have remained anonymous in past cycles.
Birkenstock, a partner at law firm Sandler Reiff, said one way groups may try to shield their donors now is by backing away from so-called “express advocacy” ads and retreating to ads that don’t explicitly urge voters to support or defeat a candidate.
Joe Birkenstock continues by explaining,
“There’s a lot we don’t know. A functional FEC would have written a regulation,” perhaps on an emergency basis to cover the upcoming election, Birkenstock said. “As of this afternoon, I feel as if the onus is on the four commissioners to come up with something.”
You can read the rest of the article here.
According to a Justice Department spokesman, there were 50 percent more FARA filings in 2017 than in 2016. And if anything, the pace has quickened since then. Many professionals believe that the boom in FARA related work can be explained by the current prosecutions and various investigations by the special counsel.
“We have seen a significant uptick in FARA-related business, both from new clients wanting to ensure they are in compliance and from existing clients who are asking us to ensure that their prior filings are fully buttoned-up,” says Josh Rosenstein of Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock. “Many of them have told us that the new regulatory environment is prompting them to take a hard look at FARA compliance.”
You can read the rest of the article here.
Two top GOP members of the House Natural Resources Committee have opened probes into three high-profile U.S. environmental groups working on issues abroad. The Republican congressmen want to know whether during their advocacy work the groups have acted as agents of foreign governments and therefore violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Joshua Rosenstein, partner of the firm, argues that these environmental groups have not violated FARA.
“Merely agreeing with the policy position of a foreign government, as many environmental groups end up doing, does not mean an organization needs to register with the Justice Department,” Rosenstein said. “Just having overlapping issues with some third party,” Rosenstein said, “does not mean you’re acting as an agent for that third party.”
You can read the rest of the article here.
Joe Birkenstock was interviewed for a segment on All Things Considered on NPR about the changing landscape and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
OVERBY: And Joe Birkenstock, who practices FARA law in Washington, said the capital city doesn’t seem much wiser – people who should know better acting as if FARA isn’t any tougher than the law on lobbying for domestic clients.
JOE BIRKENSTOCK: I think you’ll see hints of this, even in some of the statements around the case, about people saying, you know, but I never meet with public officials, or, I don’t engage in any lobbying.
You can listen to the full interview here.
Dara Lindenbaum successfully represented Liz Walsh, a candidate for Howard County Council in a recount. Ms. Walsh led her opponent by two votes going into the recount. At the end of the recount, Ms. Walsh was certified the winner by a margin of six votes.
The article and accompanying photos may be found here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/ph-ho-cf-walsh-weinstein-recount-0719-story.html
Sandler Reiff founding partner Joe Sandler was recently featured on Nathaniel G. Pearlman’s podcast The Great Battlefield, where he talked Campaign Finance Law, delegate selection, and and the changing landscape of political law in the Era of Trump. He also discussed his journey in the field of law, as well as the creation and evolution of Sandler Reiff.
You can listen to the podcast here.