Foreign influence in U.S. campaign finance.
Foreign nationals are legally prohibited from contributing to U.S. federal elections (52 U.S.C. § 30121). Foreign-agent lobbyists must register under FARA. Foreign-policy-aligned PACs are domestic but advocate specific foreign-country positions. This page tracks all four — every row links to a government primary source.
Four distinct categories — not one undifferentiated "foreign money" story.
"Foreign donor" is a phrase that does heavy lifting in political discourse, often collapsing four very different stories. We separate them on purpose:
- Illegal foreign-national contributions — documented FEC or DOJ enforcement. Bulletproof.
- FARA-registered lobbyist contributions — legal, but the politician was funded by lobbyists paid to advance a foreign government's interests.
- Foreign state-owned-enterprise employees as donors — legal contributions from U.S. residents whose employer is a foreign government's business arm.
- Foreign-policy-aligned PACs (DOMESTIC) — these are U.S. domestic PACs, NOT foreign agents. Their contributions are legal. They are listed here because their advocacy is focused on U.S. policy toward a specific foreign country.
Source bar: every row links to fec.gov, justice.gov, efile.fara.gov, or govinfo.gov. Where a row covers an FEC Matter Under Review that resulted in a 2-2 deadlock, we say so — a deadlock is a procedural dismissal, not a finding of innocence.
Foreign state-owned-enterprise employee donors · 0
FEC individual-contribution filings where the donor's listed employer is a foreign state-owned enterprise (Saudi Aramco, China National Petroleum, Gazprom, etc.). Legal under U.S. campaign-finance law (the donor is a U.S. person or permanent resident), but a transparency signal worth surfacing. Empty at launch — we have not yet verified specific FEC records meeting the bar.
No verified records in this category at launch. Send us a primary-source citation →
The 145 promises he made before the $250M.
"Miriam gave my campaign indirectly and directly $250 million." — Donald J. Trump, White House Hanukkah reception, Dec 16, 2025. SEALED is the audit of every campaign promise Trump made BEFORE that money flowed. 145 promises, graded against primary-source receipts. 116pp PDF.