Bipartisan senators push new bill to improve foreign lobbying disclosures

Senators are making a bipartisan push to improve the foreign lobbying disclosure process.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday introduced legislation that would give the Justice Department more tools to investigate possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a 1938 statute that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have characterized as outdated and weak.

{mosads}The measure — co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), along with GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Todd Young (Ind.) — would allow the Justice Department to increase the penalties for people who fail to properly register as a foreign agent.

It also would require the Government Accountability Office to study whether and to what extent the Lobbying Disclosure Act exemption is being abused to conceal foreign lobbying activity.

Foreign lobbying has been in the national spotlight since special counsel Robert Mueller obtained guilty pleas under FARA from two prominent Trump 2016 campaign aides — Paul Manafort and Richard Gates — over their lobbying work on behalf of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.

Grassley has been one of the loudest voices calling for changes to foreign lobbying rules.

Grassley introduced the Disclosing Foreign Influence Act with Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), which focused mainly on the Lobbying Disclosure Act, in the previous Congress.

Shaheen and Young have teamed up on two similar bills — one to give the Justice Department new authority to investigate potential violations and another, with Feinstein and Cornyn, to strengthen FARA.