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New Database of Registered Foreign Agents


The Center for Responsive Politics recently launched a new research tool called Foreign Lobby Watch. It provides a searchable database of organizations and individuals registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), a federal law enacted in 1938 in response to German propaganda efforts in the United States. You may have read about this law in the news recently: President Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was required to register as a foreign agent for his consulting firm’s work on behalf of a company with ties to the Turkish government.

The database is made up of FARA forms filed with the Department of Justice. The registration forms include information on the organization serving as a foreign agent, details of the business arrangement, and political donations made by the organization. The database also contains short forms (filed by individuals), and supplemental forms, filed every six months, that provide detailed information on work performed for the client. You can search the full text of the documents, or search by registrant name, name of foreign principal, or location. You can also restrict your search to a given date range.

For more information on what’s in the database, see the site’s methodology page.

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