Foreign Agents

Starred review from June 10, 2024
Corruption on behalf of despots is the stock in trade of American lobbyists who work for foreign governments, according to this masterful exposé. Michel (American Kleptocracy), director of the Combatting Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, surveys many such lobbyists, with a focus on two egregious examples. One is pioneering PR man Ivy Lee, whose clientele included the government of Nazi Germany, which he advised to court American public opinion by playing down the antisemitism and playing up the anti-Bolshevism. The second is Republican political consultant Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, who was fired from the campaign when his work advising the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in the early 2010s came to light. Michel also investigates other vectors of foreign influence, including the Clinton Foundation’s receipt of donations linked to Saudi Arabia and other countries, presumably given in anticipation of a Hillary Clinton presidency; huge donations to American universities and think tanks by foreign countries, including China; and a notorious 2013 congressional junket to Azerbaijan during which the legislators received lavish gifts from the Azeri government. Michel’s portrait of endemic corruption is disturbing; lobbying firms, he finds, do little more than serve as conduits for channeling foreign bribes to American officials. The result is a hard-hitting takedown of a cynical industry.

July 1, 2024
Michel chronicles the history and consequence of that segment of the lobbying industry that works on behalf of foreign powers to influence American policy and actions. As Michel documents, many of those foreign powers are dictatorships--many of the most deplorable sort--with the result being that the American political machine ends up being badly compromised and/or corrupted. The history goes back to the eighteenth century, with Tsarist Russia employing agents to convince a dubious America that buying Alaska was a good deal. Then, in the 1930s, a high-powered publicist named Ivy Lee was the first to make a fortune representing foreign powers, including Nazi Germany. The author goes into detail about Paul Manafort, who shilled for Ukraine (before Zelenskyy was elected to clean house), Russia, Angola, and worse, and who was criminally convicted, imprisoned, then pardoned by Trump. Michel provides many other examples--from both parties--showing just how dangerous this practice is. The situation is not well covered by the media, but this important and well-documented book effectively argues that it should be.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 15, 2024
A timely expos� of American lobbyists who degrade democracy and weaken human rights. In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers, Michel, an investigative journalist and author ofAmerican Kleptocracy, reveals the shamelessness, venality, and moral turpitude of those who work to influence federal legislators and the public in order to advance antidemocratic foreign interests. These foreign agents include public relations, law, and consulting firms and former governmental officials. The author traces the origins of the problem to Ivy Lee, who, in the 1920s and '30s, launched the public relations industry, and Paul Manafort, whose work in the 1980s spurred "a new age of unrepentant Americans willing to sell their services to dictators and autocrats abroad." Lee worked for Nazi Germany and, prior to that, "whitewashed" the Soviet Union, while Manafort earned his infamy by enabling Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also served as Donald Trump's campaign manager, was later convicted of numerous crimes, and subsequently was pardoned by the president he helped elect. Trump, Michel notes, was "the first president to solicit foreign aid for election help." Though working in distinctly different eras, Lee and Manafort emboldened an industry that enhances despots by exploiting the "right to petition" elected representatives. As the author shows, foreign governments also collaborate with universities, nonprofit foundations, and think tanks to burnish their image, change U.S. law, and undermine opponents. Remedial legislation, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act, is mostly ineffectual. This is an industry without a moral compass, and Michel's outrage is palpable and justified. Any thoughts that foreign lobbying produces benefits for the U.S. seem farcical. "It may be time to...finally bar Americans from lobbying for foreign regimes," he writes. A provocative and alarming account of the political cesspool known as foreign lobbying.

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