The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was a law passed in 1938, requiring American companies working for foreign governments to officially report this to the US government. The Department of Justice is in charge of keeping these records. However, there has been a history of these companies not complying with the act.

Furthermore, anyone who wants any access to the records of companies that do comply would with FARA have to go in person to the DoJ and get the records printed for $0.50 a page. Apparently, they couldn't put the records online either because the system is so "fragile" that any attempt would "could result in a major loss of data." Recently, the FARA website has made it possible to search the records, but not actually read them. You still have to pay $0.50 a page for that. No wonder why it's so hard to find out how much foreign money is going into American elections. It could be millions more, for all we know. These documents are nearly inaccessible, allowing these foreign-affiliated companies to hide behind a curtain of money. Meanwhile, these foreign donors are buying substantial influence with U.S. lawmakers in the process.

The $11.9 million going to U.S. candidates from foreign actors is no chump change. And that's just the amount that we have the privilege of knowing about. This is just one more reason that we need to have a system of clean elections that are publicly financed. Our politicians are not only accountable to American special interests who give millions of dollars to their campaigns, but evidently accountable to foreign special interests as well. We need to push for public financing and re-gain control of our government.