US Justice Department ends criminal enforcement of foreign influence law
Attorney General Pam Bondi also launched unit focused on 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and restarted enforcement of federal death penalty
The US Justice Department is scaling back policing of foreign interests operating in the United States, ending criminal enforcement of a law used to snare bad actors seeking to influence politics and elections, including two allies of US President Donald Trump.
In a memo sent to staff on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed that she had disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to investigating violations of the law requiring foreign agents to register with US authorities.
She said the decision had been made to “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponisation and abuses of prosecutorial discretion”.
Bondi did not elaborate, but figures on the Republican Party’s conspiratorial far right have accused the government of abusing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to unfairly target political operatives, such as Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager.
Manafort was charged with a litany of offences, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and lying in FARA documents, but he was ultimately pardoned by Trump.