FILE - The Justice Department in Washington, Nov. 18, 2022. The U.S. Justice Department has created a database to track records of misconduct by federal law enforcement officers that is aimed at preventing agencies from unknowingly hiring problem officers, officials said on Monday. Dec. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
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DOJ loses foreign agent case against casino mogul
A federal appeals court just threw out the Department of Justice’s foreign agent case against Steve Wynn, former Wynn Resorts CEO and finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
The decision marks a blow to the department’s heightened enforcement actions to root out undisclosed foreign influence in the U.S. in recent years.
The department filed a civil suit against Wynn in May 2022, trying to compel him to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a transparency statute that requires agents of foreign interests seeking to sway U.S. policy or the public to disclose certain information.
Wynn pressed then-President Trump and other administration officials in 2017 to extradite Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, a critic of the government who had sought asylum in the U.S., the lawsuit alleged.
The Wynn case was the first civil suit brought under FARA in more than three decades, the government said at the time.
But the casino mogul denied acting as a foreign agent for China, and a lower court dismissed the case in fall 2022.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision.
“Even accepting the government’s allegations as true, Wynn long ago ceased acting as a foreign agent, he has no present obligation to register,” the judges wrote.
“Without commenting on the specifics, we are delighted with the result. It is a well-deserved finish to a long ordeal for our client,” said Bob Luskin, a partner at Paul Hastings LLP who led Wynn’s defense team.
Welcome to The Hill’s Business & Economy newsletter, we’re Aris Folley and Taylor Giorno — covering the intersection of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Boeing and Airbus emphasized that there are no safety concerns after revealing Friday that some titanium parts used in their aircraft had falsified documentation, triggering a federal investigation.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating after a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max fell into a “Dutch roll” during a flight last month, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) threw her support behind Christy Goldsmith Romero to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) after President Biden announced Thursday he would nominate Romero, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to replace outgoing Chair Martin Gruenberg.
The Senate Finance Committee has a hearing slated for next Tuesday focused on challenges and opportunities for work and Social Security benefits at 10 am.
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New laptops equipped with Microsoft Windows start shipping to customers next week without a flagship feature called Recall that drew concerns about privacy and cybersecurity.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a fiery dissent harshly denounced a Supreme Court ruling Friday that rejected a ban on bump stocks, saying it “eviscerates” the congressional regulation of machine guns. Read more
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