S. 981 — Foreign Agents Transparency Act

This section revises the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to clarify that an agent's termination as an agent of a foreign principal does not relieve the obligation to file a registration statement covering the period of such agency (changing "for the period" to "covering the period" in 22 U.S.C. 612(a)). The amendment applies to any individual serving as such an agent during the five-year period ending on the date of enactment, on the date of enactment, or thereafter.

This section modifies the injunctive remedy provision of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (22 U.S.C. 618(f)) to authorize the Attorney General to seek a court order requiring compliance with FARA or its regulations while a person acts as an agent of a foreign principal or at any time thereafter, including an order requiring compliance with FARA registration requirements (section 2) for any past period of agency notwithstanding that the person no longer acts as such an agent when the court issues the order. (FARA requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals—i.e., foreign governments, organizations, or persons—to register with the Attorney General and publicly disclose related activities and relationships.) The amendments apply to any individual who served (or serves) as a FARA agent during the 5-year period ending on the date of enactment, on the date of enactment, or thereafter.

This section directs the Attorney General to submit annual machine-readable reports to the Senate Committees on the Judiciary and Foreign Relations, the House Committee on the Judiciary, and any Member of Congress upon request—beginning one year after enactment—detailing each covered action to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA, 22 U.S.C. 611 et seq.), as amended by sections 2 and 3, against covered individuals (i.e., those who served as agents of a foreign principal under FARA during the five-year period ending on enactment). Each report is organized by covered action and includes, for each, (1) the covered individual's name, (2) the rationale for the action, and (3) the action's status.