[ad_1]
Speaking during the question-and-answer portion of a conference on the foreign lobbying law that he acknowledged to be violating, Patten presented himself and presented a hypothetical situation that reflected his own case before a group of experts including John Demers, Deputy Attorney General in charge of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.
"My name is Sam Patten and I think I'm the ninth FARA conviction in American history, or at least in post-war history," Patten said, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Foreign Agents Registration Act). influence in the United States.
Patten pleaded guilty last year to having participated in the drafting of an editorial in the US media on a Ukrainian oligarch before the elections and for having organized government meetings – acts that he should have register under the FARA. On Wednesday, during the event organized by the American Enterprise Institute, he submitted the panel to a question that seemed to apply some elements of his own case to a hypothetical situation involving pro-Ukrainian opinions published by funded think tanks by political candidates in the country. .
Demers did not answer Patten's question and Robert Kelner, an electoral and political law advocate in the panel, suggested that the law could have been applied in the same way in the hypothetical situation as in the drama Real Patten.
"An opening question is whether there is an agency for a foreign government or a foreign political party," Kelner said. "You can have a US non-profit activity that involves US or foreign elections, but it's not necessarily on behalf of a foreign principal, but if you have agency evidence in general, it will probably trigger the law. "
Kelner is one of the defense lawyers of Michael Flynn, the former most senior government official indicted by Mueller. After pleading guilty to lying to investigators, Trump's first national security adviser cooperated with investigators in a foreign lobbying case where his former trading partner was charged with 39, having worked illegally for Turkey in the United States.
Earlier in the conference, Demers had described FARA as "an elegant solution to a difficult problem" and said the Justice Department had "refocused" on it after a report by the inspector. General of 2017 and violations discovered during the investigation of the special council.
"We were certainly motivated by the report of an Inspector General who described the shortcomings of our law enforcement, then by what we saw in the context of investigations related to the 2016 elections and the omnipresent character of foreign influence in this case in our investigation. democratic process, "said Demers.
Demers also explained the reasons that had prompted the DOJ's request that certain media organizations, including the Russian-funded RT Network, be required to register as foreign agents under of the law.
"We need to have a factual basis to say that when you act as a potential journalist, you actually act under the direction of your government and that you do not have independent journalistic ethics. to which we think when we examine a journalist, "said Demers.
"In fact, not labeling yourself as a foreign agent is misleading because you are presenting yourself to the American people as an independent and thinking about your own thoughts but that you are not, you get your ideas from a foreign government, "he said.
Katelyn Polantz from CNN contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link