Prosecution under foreign-agent law called rare

WASHINGTON — Criminal prosecutions are rare for people who fail to register as foreign agents, according to a top Justice Department official who testified Wednesday about a law receiving new attention during investigations into contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general, told Senate lawmakers that the Foreign Agents Registration Act — a law aimed at ensuring transparency about lobbying efforts done in the U.S. on behalf of foreign governments or principals — contains multiple exemptions for registration and requires proof that someone intended to break the law by failing to disclose their work. He said lawyers in a specialized Justice Department unit often prod someone to voluntarily register instead of seeking to charge them.

“The high burden of proving willfulness, difficulties in proving direction or control by a foreign principal and exemptions available under the statute make criminal prosecution for [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations challenging,” Hickey said.

Nonetheless, he said, the Justice Department has lodged four criminal cases under the statute since 2007, all of which he said have resulted in convictions.

Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, belatedly registered in June with the Justice Department for political consulting work he did for a Ukrainian political party. He acknowledged that he coached party members on how to interact with U.S. government officials.

The law has been broadly discussed over the past year because of Justice Department investigations into Trump campaign associates and because of a watchdog report last year that said the statute had been weakly enforced for decades.

Besides Manafort, Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and his business firm registered in the weeks after his ouster from the administration for lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

Manafort had been invited to testify at Wednesday’s hearing but he did not appear. Instead, he agreed Tuesday night to turn over documents and to continue negotiating about setting up an interview with the panel.

The committee also removed the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. from the list of witnesses scheduled for Wednesday’s public hearing.

The panel has sought to talk with Manafort about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in New York with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, among other issues including his foreign political work on behalf of Ukrainian interests.

On Tuesday, Manafort met with Senate Intelligence Committee staff, providing his recollection of the Veselnitskaya meeting and agreeing to turn over contemporaneous notes of the gathering last year, according to people familiar with the private interview. Manafort “answered their questions fully,” said his spokesman, Jason Maloni.

Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner was also on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a second day of private meetings, this time for a conversation with lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee.

Both Manafort and Kushner have been cooperating with the committees which, along with special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with Trump associates.