For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, journalist Casey Michel contends some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. Many of these lobbyists have transformed into proxies for dictators and strongmen wherever they can be found. And for years, they've escaped scrutiny.

These lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry - a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it - and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.
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Casey Michel is head of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, focusing on how dictators and autocrats use illicit finance and dirty money to remain in power. He’s the author of AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY, on America's transformation into an offshore haven. His new book, FOREIGN AGENTS, will examine the explosion of the foreign lobbying industry in Washington, and how that industry has helped entrench dictatorships and upend American foreign policy. FOREIGN AGENTS will be published in 2024.
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BOOKS:
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American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History (2021)
Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World (2024)
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CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 Discussing he explosion of foreign lobbying industry in Washington.
00:01:21 How post-Soviet dictatorships target and manipulate Western audiences.
00:03:38 Paul Manafort in the foreign policy space, is certainly one of the most visible.
00:06:35 The more esteemed white shoe law firms or even politicians are implicated.
00:10:03 Putin was shocked by the pushback and unity from the Western powers.
00:11:45 Bob Dole left office and became the most prominent foreign agent at the time.
00:15:04 It began in the 1930s and absolutely exploded in the post-Cold War period.
00:18:42 The golden age of foreign lobbying is perhaps the 1990s and the 2000s.
00:24:32 In regime after regime we see similar forces at play, consolidation of power.
00:30:10 Again there's a whole range of services these lobbyists provide governments.
00:38:51 Data shows every country that has lobbied the US for economic aid received it.
00:42:47 The Foreign Agents Registration Act wasn't enforced for decades/
00:46:22 Places like Venezuela are leading on the influence and infiltration operations.
00:57:37 Even those Americans, Brits and Europeans have a price that can be met.
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