Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World

An stunning investigation and indictment of the United States' foreign lobbying industry and the threat it poses to democracy.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, they've begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and they've spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry — a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it — and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.

All of these industries, and all of these Americans, have transformed into proxies for dictators and strongmen wherever they can be found. And for years, they've escaped scrutiny.

In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists, and all the damage and devastation they have caused in Washington and elsewhere. From Moscow to Beijing, from far-right nationalists to far-left communists, from anti-American autocrats to pro-Western authoritarians, these foreign lobbyists have helped any illiberal, anti-democratic government they can find. And after decades of success in installing dictator after dictator, and in tilting American policy in the process, they've now begun trying to end America's democratic experiment, once and for all.

"A timely exposé of American lobbyists who degrade democracy and weaken human rights. In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers... A provocative and alarming account of the political cesspool known as foreign lobbying." Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"[A] masterful exposé....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….A hard-hitting takedown of a cynical industry." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"An unprecedented and shocking look at the law firms, PR specialists, consultants, and former officials who've helped the enemies of democracy succeed." Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander S. Vindman, author of Here, Right Matters

"Michel shines an urgent spotlight on the shadowy world of foreign lobbying....Foreign Agents is a searing polemic against the culture of American foreign lobbying with the high-stakes twists and turns of a Hollywood thriller, written by a foremost authority on the matter." Christopher Miller, author of The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine Praise for American Kleptocracy:

Casey Michel is an author, journalist, and director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program with the Human Rights Foundation. He is the author of American Kleptocracy, named by The Economist as one of the "best books to read to understand financial crime." His writing on offshoring, foreign lobbying, authoritarianism, and illicit wealth has appeared in Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post, among other outlets, and he has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNN, and MSNBC, among other stations. He has also testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the links between illicit financial networks and national security. He received his Master's degree in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University's Harriman Institute, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Kazakhstan. Foreign Agents is his second book.