Preet Bharara, left, and Joe Zabel, right, of WilmerHale. Courtesy photos

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—a formerly obscure federal law designed to help the government monitor foreign influence in the United States—is obscure no longer. In 2023, cases abound: a charge lodged against a sitting U.S. senator for conspiring to help Egypt maintain its halal food export monopoly; increased scrutiny regarding foreign contributions to non-profit and cultural institutions; and a Grammy award-winning musician who lobbied on behalf of the Chinese government.

There also have been a fair number of criminal enforcement failures in this area. This is due to the Hobson's choice embedded in the statute: the extreme sanction of criminal enforcement or no real enforcement at all, without a meaningful civil middle ground. This lack of calibrated enforcement options has led to a series of grim FARA tales.