Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1938 to address rising concern about Nazi propaganda in the years before World War II. When the arcane law applies, the United States has required foreign agents to comply with stringent disclosure requirements.

 

Last year, in what amounts to the highest-profile FARA prosecution in decades, Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, with FARA violations in connection with Manafort’s work in Ukraine. Manafort’s lawyer described the FARA charges as “a very novel theory.”