Foreign Agent Registration

Justice Needs to Improve Program Administration Gao ID: NSIAD-90-250 July 30, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) administration of foreign agent registration.

GAO found that: (1) the DOJ Registration Unit identified 70 individuals or firms acting as lobbyists for foreign interests, 13 of which it believed might be obligated to register; (2) the Registration Unit did not collect information on the number of foreign agents who were claiming an exemption from registration; (3) DOJ officials did not believe that the additional information on unregistered foreign agents that might result from an exemption notification requirement would justify the associated costs; (4) the questions on the forms were general and did not specifically require information necessary to satisfy disclosure requirements; and (5) over one-half of a sample of 204 statements were not filed before the deadlines.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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