Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has given federal prosecutors momentum to litigate alleged violations of what until last year was an obscure law governing foreign lobbying.
In the course of his now 19-month probe, Mueller has uncovered a web of alleged criminality linked to violations of a World War II-era law enacted amid concerns over foreign propaganda.
Mueller has obtained guilty pleas under the law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), from two of President Trump’s 2016 campaign aides, Paul Manafort and Richard Gates. Both pleaded guilty to charges linked to their lobbying work on behalf of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.