From February 1 through March 30, 2022, there were twenty FARA filings, with most being filed in March. While exact values are not known for all the filings, over $3 million will be paid out to US registrants for their services. Three quarters of the new filings are tied, directly or indirectly, to a foreign government.
The most lucrative filing in this period, totaling $2 million (p.11), comes out of the government of Alberta, a Canadian province, which hired JDA Frontline Partners for communications, research, and media services that the Albertan government deems important (p.5). Alberta’s largest trading partner is the United States, totaling nearly $78 billion in 2020, and has maintained a representative office in Washington, D.C. since 2005 (p.29).
On the other end of monetary extremes, three registrants made pro bono filings for their work on behalf of Ukrainian principals in the wake of Russia’s brutal escalation of its war in the country that began in 2014. We already reported on one such filing, relating to speechwriting, by SKDKnickerbocker, which has ties to President Joe Biden. The second was filed by Mr. Lucas Kaczmarek to assist the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in acquiring “private and commercially-available material” to combat Vladimir Putin’s armies (p.6).
The third pro bono Ukraine filing, by Morrison and Foerster, was for the Office of the President of Ukraine to aid in evaluating US sanctions policy, regulations, and “updating advice in response to emerging conditions” (p.6).
Two related filings regarding Nigeria show a concerted effort to crack down on “corrupt payments to foreign officials,” (p.8 in either filing) presumably Nigerian officials. The foreign principal in both filings is Johnson & Johnson Solicitors, although in the later filing Raffaniello & Associates serves as a go-between for J&J, which in turn “is the authorized asset recovery agent for . . . Nigeria” (p.2). The intent of the principal is to encourage Congress to open an investigation into “misuse of the United States’ banking system.” for the aforementioned corrupt payments (p.10).
Colombia, along with Ukraine, saw the highest number of FARA filings in this period with three. Filing 7081 is curious given that the registrant and foreign principal are the same entity—the Partido Politico MIRA (p.1). MIRA states that it is conducting a “political campaign for Colombian Citizens living in the United States” (p.2). The other interesting Colombian filing is on behalf of G&M Futuro SAS, which seems to be a passthrough for the Hope Center Coalition, a political party. Juan Manual Galan, who is running for the Colombian presidency, is listed as a person the Registrant is responsible for (p.8).
We have previously reported on a filing involving Taiwan for its payment to the Guatemalan government for FARA-related services in the United States. It was notable for the distance that Taiwan placed between itself and the registrant, Brian Ballard.
But an early March filing by Kuomintang shows that Taiwanese government officials are not always so elusive. Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in Taiwan, and was the ruling party during its decades-long period of martial law. The KMT Representative Office in the United States serves as the registrant for the party and “as such will serve as KMT’s official channel of communication with [US] government officials…, business leaders, universities and other public institutions, and the media” to convey the party’s beliefs and positions (p.6).
Across the narrow strait from Taiwan, a retroactive filing was logged with FARA from EDI Media Inc, which printed the US evening edition of the XinMin International newspaper, the foreign principal and a Chinese government-directed media organization. The agreement “was terminated at the end of 2018” (p.5) but the value of the contract was redacted (p.11).
Don’t forget to check back for more deep dives on the FARA Files.
