Joe Birkenstock was quoted in an article in Politico on an investigation into Congressional aides conflicts with stock trades. The investigation narrows in on whether senior staffers buy and sell shares in companies that benefit from legislation in their committees. On the role of the House Ethics Committee amidst these allegations, Joe Birkenstock shares:
“They genuinely don’t want to see the body brought into scandal, controversy or disrepute,” said Joseph Birkenstock, a former chief counsel for the Democratic National Committee. “That includes things like, is your boss twisting your arm? Are you doing things because you’re under some job pressure? Or is there any credible forum where someone could claim that your actions or your boss’ actions are connected in any way to the commercial success of this business?”
Joshua Rosenstein was quoted in a Washington Examiner article about the Justice Department’s move towards forcing Russia-funded news outlets to label themselves as propaganda and publicly disclose their funding and editorial processes. Rosenstein discusses the probability and consequences of these organizations challenging the Justice Department in court.
“Fighting a FARA registration demand is risky and an uphill battle,” Rosenstein said. If the outlet argues it deserves a statutory exemption as a news organization, he said, “the regulations place the burden for proving the exemption squarely on the purported foreign agent.”
Rosenstein doubts a First Amendment challenge would prevail, likening FARA disclosures to campaign donation reporting the courts have upheld. He added that resisting the Justice Department may increase the risk of criminal prosecution for not registering.
Josh Rosenstein was quoted in a Washington Examiner article on whether the Sputnik news outlet is illegally spreading propaganda without disclosure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. On the issue, Rosenstein shared:
Attorney Joshua Rosenstein, an expert on FARA, said it’s too soon to tell where the probe will go, and that governance and control of news outlets are significant factors in determining if it must register.
“All of this is a fact-specific inquiry. You have to look at the ownership structure, the control, the amount of discretion reporters have on the ground — whether they are serving a legitimate news-gathering function or they are just propagandists for a foreign government,” he said.
Criminal charges are possible for FARA violators, Rosenstein said, but once an organization is registered “FARA does not generally prohibit you from doing this work, it just requires that it be disclosed,” likening it to required disclosure of campaign donations allowable under the First Amendment.
“Whether they have enough to bring Sputnik up on individual charges remains to be seen,” Rosenstein said. “I would imagine they would have to do a significant amount of fact gathering and actually have the goods before they go after a news agency.”
David Mitrani was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article discussing the legality of the Facebook ads purchased by a Russian company during the 2016 election. On the topic, he explains:
Political activity by foreign nations or foreign government to influence U.S. elections in broadly prohibited by campaign finance law. U.S. law also tightly restricts propaganda material produced by foreign governments for domestic audiences. Content that doesn’t mention political candidates falls into a grey area.
“Foreign nationals are prohibited from giving money to federal, state and local politicians and are prohibited from spending money to influence American elections, directly or indirectly, but the reality of the restriction is that it’s very complicated,” said Dave Mitrani, a attorney with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock who advises Democratic candidate and campaigns on campaign finance law.