Foreign influence in U.S. campaign finance.

AIPAC-affiliated super PAC raised $87.2M in the 2023-2024 cycle. Spent $37.9M on independent expenditures targeting Democratic House primary candidates including Bowman (NY-16, $9.9M against) and Bush (MO-01, $8.6M against). Cumulative receipts since founding (2022): $176M+.

UDP is a DOMESTIC U.S. super PAC, not a foreign agent. Listed in the foreign-policy-aligned-PAC category because its advocacy is specifically focused on U.S. policy positions favoring a single foreign country (Israel). All UDP contributions and independent expenditures are legal under U.S. campaign finance law. The $87.2M cycle-receipt figure is from FEC committee C00799031 page for cycle 2024 (as of 2024-12-31). The $37.9M independent-expenditure figure is the apples-to-apples "election spending" number. Both verifiable via fec.gov/data/committee/C00799031/?cycle=2024.

Membership-organization PAC bundling individual contributions to candidates aligned with pro-Israel, pro-two-state-solution U.S. policy positions.

Same framing as UDP: a domestic U.S. PAC whose advocacy is focused on U.S. policy toward a specific foreign country. Different policy position than UDP/AIPAC.

Trade-association PAC affiliated with the Armenian National Committee of America.

Chinese billionaire pled guilty in EDNY to a straw-donor scheme: solicited others to make political contributions in their names which he reimbursed, plus immigration fraud.

SDNY indictment charging straw-donor and foreign-national contribution conspiracy; $1M wired by Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev to fund federal contributions seeking cannabis licenses.

Parnas and Fruman were convicted of violating the foreign-national contribution prohibition (52 U.S.C. § 30121). The conspiracy involved soliciting and receiving $1M from Andrey Muraviev, a Russian national, then making contributions in their own names to federal candidates in states where Parnas was seeking cannabis-business licenses.

Sentenced to 12 years; pled guilty to FARA violation, tax evasion, and illegal conduit contributions funneling foreign money into U.S. campaigns and the 2017 inaugural committee.

Zuberi acted as a conduit funneling money from foreign principals into federal campaigns and the 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee under his own name. The DOJ sentencing release documents 12-year sentence and ~$950k in conduit contributions across multiple cycles.

Patten pled guilty to FARA violation; admitted purchasing four inauguration tickets for a Ukrainian oligarch via a $50,000 straw-donor payment reimbursed through a Cypriot bank account.

Patten's plea documented a $50,000 payment to the inaugural committee made in his own name but reimbursed by an unnamed Ukrainian oligarch through a Cypriot account. The plea formed part of the Mueller Special Counsel investigation referrals.

Chung pled guilty to bank fraud, tax evasion, and two misdemeanor election-law conspiracy counts; told federal investigators $35,000 of donations originated with PRC military intelligence.

The Thompson Committee report documents Chung's testimony that approximately $35,000 of contributions he made to DNC committees in the 1996 cycle originated with Chinese military-intelligence sources.

FEC MUR 7272: complaint alleging Mercury and Podesta lobbyists, working as undisclosed agents for Ukraine's Party of Regions / ECMU, made contributions while lobbying on behalf of those foreign principals.

Important caveat: the FEC commission DEADLOCKED 2-2 on whether to pursue enforcement. This is a procedural dismissal, not a finding of innocence. The underlying lobbying-while-contributing pattern was documented in the MUR file.

Podesta Group amended FARA registration in April 2017 retroactively disclosing 2012-era lobbying for European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (~$1.2M); principals subsequently appeared in FEC MUR 7272.

The retroactive FARA registration is the receipt: lobbying activity for a foreign principal was occurring during the same period Podesta employees were making federal contributions, and was not disclosed under FARA at the time it was occurring.