President Donald Trump is turning foreign-influence laws that once ensnared figures in his own orbit toward left-wing activist networks accused of benefiting from overseas money and support.
Once seldom enforced criminally, FARA became a more prominent tool at the DOJ after 2016, including in cases involving several figures in Trump’s orbit as well as some prominent Democrats. Now, legal experts say that FARA and other laws dealing with foreign influence are emerging as a potential weapon in Trump’s campaign against left-wing activist networks.
“Unfortunately, it seems clear that the Biden administration went overboard and tried to use FARA as a political weapon against allies and supporters of President Trump instead of concentrating on real national security threats and those acting on behalf of foreign governments and principals without disclosing it as required by the law,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, a think tank founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, told Fox News Digital.
FARA requires people acting in the United States on behalf of foreign governments or political parties to disclose their relationships, activities and funding to the Justice Department. While the law has been on the books for decades, criminal prosecutions related to it have become more common from 2016 onwards, engendering resentment among conservatives who feel they were unfairly targeted by the Justice Department.
“Prior to the Mueller gang and the deep state using it against Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, FARA was rarely, if ever used for criminal purposes,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Fox News Digital. “It was seen as a paperwork issue … anti-Trump fanaticism turned it into a weapon to put people in jail.”
FARA prosecutions were relatively rare prior to the first Trump administration, with only seven criminal cases being prosecuted between 1966 and 2015. In 2018 alone, however, the Department of Justice charged more than 20 individuals and entities with FARA violations.
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During the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, many of those targeted by the Department of Justice for undisclosed links to foreign governments were viewed as close allies of Trump.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair and a long-time GOP consultant, for instance, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States in 2018 in connection with his activity as an unregistered foreign agent for Ukraine.
Michael Flynn separately came under scrutiny for his firm’s work tied to Turkish interests, while his criminal plea involved false statements to the FBI about conversations with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s business partner was convicted of acting as an undisclosed agent of Turkey, though the conviction was eventually overturned and the investigation was dropped by the Justice Department.
Conservatives were not exclusively targeted during the last two administrations, however.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Linda Sun, a former Democratic staffer, all faced foreign influence investigations under the Biden administration.
The pattern of right-wing politicos getting caught up in alleged foreign influence schemes continued into the Biden administration, with Rudy Giuliani, GOP megadonor Stephen Wynn and Trump associate Tom Barrack all being investigated for foreign ties.
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi wound down FARA enforcement upon taking office in 2025, narrowing prosecutions to activities resembling traditional espionage, citing the law’s purported weaponization under President Joe Biden. Fitton characterized this as a “reversion to the norm.”
In a departure from the prior two administrations, Spakovsky told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration is working to “implement a comprehensive national security strategy that integrates FARA as a tool,” citing a national security memo issued by the president in 2025.
NSPM-7, the memo referenced by Spakovsky, is a Trump administration directive ordering federal agencies to investigate and disrupt alleged networks behind domestic terrorism and organized political violence. It specifically directs the Department of Justice to scrutinize foreign ties and investigate possible FARA violations in order to investigate advocacy groups, nonprofits, donors and activists linked to alleged political violence.
Some groups on the right and left have criticized the memo for potentially targeting constitutionally protected expression. The ACLU, for instance, argued that it could chill free speech since the document explicitly calls out “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity” as dangers to the United States.
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Spakovsky, however, argued that the memo simply implements changes that were recommended by career civil servants during the Obama administration.
“When looking at the directive, another important point on FARA is to go back to a very revealing report issued by DOJ’s Inspector General in 2016 in which it criticized DOJ’s lack of enforcement of FARA, including during the Obama administration,” he said. “It recommended that DOJ develop a comprehensive enforcement strategy that was integrated with DOJ’s overall national security efforts … This relatively new directive seems to be an effort to do exactly what the DOJ IG recommended ten years ago – implement a comprehensive national security strategy that integrates FARA as a tool.”
Though FARA is seen by many as the obvious mechanism to address foreign influence, if it is indeed being exerted on American activists, some legal experts are skeptical about relying on it alone.
“FARA is a powerful tool. It’s just a difficult tool to use,” Jason Torchinsky, a partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News Digital. “It is a powerful tool, but there are other tools they can use too.”
Torchinsky pointed to the recent investigation into Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and Code PINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, initiated by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, as an example of this.
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“If these guys literally are shipping things to Cuba in violation of sanctions, that’s pretty easy,” he said. “You don’t have to prove any intent … OFAC sanctions are just such an easy crime to prosecute, because it’s like, you did X, I have evidence you did X, and it was prohibited … it’s a really nice sort of cut and dry criminal case.”
Trying to bring FARA charges into the mix, according to Torchinsky, could lead to unnecessary complications.
Torchinsky, who specializes in government ethics laws, noted that prosecuting violations of FARA often proves problematic as defendants can sometimes credibly claim their actions are protected by the First Amendment. Other options, he said, may be more attractive to prosecutors attempting to address foreign political influence.
Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith, added that prosecutors need to prove that those accused of violating FARA knew they were breaking the law at the time of their conduct, which he called “a very high standard.”
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“The IRS has tools that allow them to revoke the nonprofit status of nonprofits that are acting illegally,” Torchinsky continued. “There’s a concept in internal revenue law called the illegality doctrine. The idea is that you can’t set up and operate as a nonprofit, something that’s illegal.”
Nonprofit organizations accused of providing material aid to foreign terrorist organizations, for instance, could be prosecuted by the administration without the Justice Department having to prove that they acted as unregistered foreign agents.
“Criminal statutes like wire fraud, bank fraud, those types of statutes could come into play, particularly if those carrying out these foreign influence operations are receiving cash or payments or some other type of compensation for taking part in these operations,” Smith added.
Some, however, see FARA as an indispensable tool in fighting foreign influence.
“I look forward to a quiet life outside of politics. With a fire-pit and beehives,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, posted to X on Wednesday. “Until then I am going to make it my mission to get the FARA office back up and running. The political divide in this country is a foreign op from multiple countries and it’s sad.”
Torchinsky noted that the presidential national security memo laid out some laws other than FARA that the administration could use to target foreign-backed political agitators.
“You can go after these folks, particularly these entities that are engaged in violence,” he said. “They’ve got conspiracy against rights, solicitation of a crime or violence, money laundering, funding terrorist acts or facilitating terrorism, arson offenses, RICO, and fraud against the United States.”
“For example, organizing protests and violence at companies that are in the F-35 supply chain, like Palestinian groups are doing, is potentially a solicitation of acts of violence,” Torchinsky added.
“Now, I suspect this is the beginning of a larger conversation over FARA, whether it needs to be revised, how it needs to be revised, what this regime will look like going forward to combat foreign influence in the United States,” Smith, the Heritage fellow, said. “But fundamentally, there should be broad agreement that foreign influence, particularly foreign influence directed at influencing our elections, our political discourse, is very problematic. Appropriate action should be taken to combat it.”
The Department of Justice, Treasury Department, and Code PINK did not respond to requests for comment when reached by Fox News Digital.