A new law designed to require financial disclosure by Russian media outlets in the U.S. will potentially force more transparency in the operations of media companies headquartered in Qatar, including Al Jazeera English. The new law would require Al Jazeera English to file periodic reports with the Federal Communications Commission disclosing some information about the financial and operational control exerted over those broadcasters by parent companies abroad.
Despite this new law, however, the FCC has not received any registrations from either a Qatari or Russian media outlet. Only two broadcasters have registered to date.
Joshua Rosenstein, a lobbying and FARA compliance attorney with the firm Sandler Reiff, called the relatively few registrations “surprising, particularly given the breadth of the statute.”
“To me,” Rosenstein told The Daily Beast, “the dearth of reporting signals a combination of factors: lack of awareness of this small provision stuck into a massive bill; consternation and disagreement by state-run media over mandatory disclosure in general; [and] a lack of understanding of how the two laws might overlap.”
Authorities have indicted two former associates of Michael Flynn for acting as illegal agents of the Turkish government in the United States.
Partner of the firm, Josh Rosenstein, comments on these indictments and the role of cooperation in FARA prosecutions.
“Cooperation is a very big part of it,” said Josh Rosenstein, a partner at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock who specializes in fara requirements. “One reason there have been so few fara indictments and prosecutions historically is because it is often used as a bargaining chip as part of pre-prosecution agreements.”
Capitol Media Group, a firm that was part of a controversial foreign influence operation that allegedly ensnared veterans into lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia, filed its first FARA supplemental statement on record with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Capitol Media Group filed its first supplemental statement with DOJ on October 30, 2018. However, the supplemental statement included a slew of inconsistencies. For example, the statement appears only to cover the six-month period ending September 30, 2018, more than a year after their lobbying activities took place, and there are payments reported to the veterans as opposed to the hotels or other businesses that benefited from the money.
Joshua Rosenstein, an attorney with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, called it “positively bizarre.”
Rosenstein said he is less concerned with why the supplemental statement was filed more than a year after the activities took place than other “substantive problems such as inconsistencies between the supplemental statement and initial filings as well as areas where “all of the boxes that are left blank.”
Ravi Singh, an Illinois-based political consultant, has challenged a federal law barring foreign involvement in U.S. elections, alleging the provision is unconstitutional. Although Mueller has yet to charge anyone with a direct violation of this law, the federal bar has played a role in his investigation and his team alludes to the statute in several legal filings.
A ruling in Singh’s favor could create more uncertainty with the Mueller investigation and in the greater effort to shield U.S. elections from foreign influence.
“It shows there is a lot of untested ground surrounding the foreign national prohibition,” said Joe Birkenstock, a former Democratic National Committee general counsel now with law firm Sandler Reiff.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”