A powerful U.S. Senator. A leading aide to the New York Governor. A leading Korea expert. All prominent figures in the last several months who have been accused of being foreign agents, working on behalf of foreign governments to influence U.S. policy.

To make sense of this all, A'ndre chatted with Casey Michel, author of Foreign Agents and the Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, to understand the history of foreign lobbying in the United States and to talk through some of the more high profile cases. Casey profiles Ivy Lee, the father of the modern PR industry, and how he helped fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the 1930s sell their ideologies to the broader public. The discussion also covered Paul Manafort, a convicted felon and former GOP strategist known for his work on the Donald Trump and Bob Dole presidential campaigns. A'ndre and Casey reviewed recent notable cases, including:

• Senator Bob Menendez's recent conviction that he accepted gold bars to promote policy favored by the Egyptian government;
• Former NSC official and think tank expert Sue Mi Terry's alleged advocacy of South Korean interests on behalf of her Korean government handlers;
• New York Governor Kathy Hochul's aide Linda Sun's alleged engagement in political activities in China's interest within the governor's office;
• and former Senator Bob Dole's advocacy on behalf of a Russian oligarch.

You can purchase Casey's new book, Foreign Agents, here.

This week, A'ndre chatted with Eliot Higgins, an award-winning journalist who founded the citizen journalism outlet Bellingcat, a fact-checking platform utilizing open-source intelligence focusing on international affairs. Eliot talks about his initial work studying the Syrian Civil War and the conflict in Libya, and how he was able to identify key war crimes from analyzing open-source and publicly available data. He describes the thought process that led him to found Bellingcat and gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the platform's initial investigation into the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 by Russian-backed militias. A'ndre and Eliot discuss how Bellingcat and citizen journalism at large have operated in the context of the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, in addition to talking about the challenges of disinformation in its work. Eliot gives his take on AI-generated images and videos and if he's worried about the proliferation of such content, and whether governments have pursued him as a result of his investigative work.

Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Within hours, the U.S. and allies coordinated a shadow-war – using the tools of economic statecraft – to bring the heat down on Moscow. That shadow-war is the subject of this week's conversation featuring Stephanie Baker, veteran Bloomberg journalist and Russia expert, as she talks about this economic war, how it was coordinated, how it was executed, and how it has continually impacted the Russian economy and politics. Stephanie and A'ndre talk through what economic warfare actually is and how those tools were leveraged in the years preceding the War in Ukraine, and to what effect. Stephanie also provides a broad overview of what the state of the Russian economy is in 2024, and responds to criticisms that some have over sanctions. We close out the conversation with an outlook on what a potential Harris or second Trump administration may do.

You can pre-order Stephanie's new book, Punishing Putin, here: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1668050587?tag=simonsayscom