Foreign Agents by Casey Michel (Kazakhstan)

Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World
by Casey Michel (Kazakstan 2011)
St. Martins Press
August 2024
$14.99 (Kindle); $17.71 (Audiobook); $27.90 (Hardcover)

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they’ve not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they’ve secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it—and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.

In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists as some of them—after decades of installing dictators and corrupting American policy—embark on their next mission: to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.

Casey Michel’s Peace Corps Experience

Casey Michel (Kazakhstan 2011)

In 2011, Michel spent three months living with a large Turkish family in Almaty, where he received vocational training and learned Russian, then traveled to a 6,000 person village in northern Kazakhstan to serve the remaining two years. The village was in southern Siberia, and the climate, with its humid, mosquito-laden summers and long, bitter winters, was brutal. Michel’s job was to teach English to grades five through ten at a local school. “It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” he says. “I was the first Westerner, first American that many of them had ever met.” Then, six months later, just as he was adjusting to the shock of being there, the Peace Corps administration announced that they were closing the Kazakhstan program. “The official reasons were budgetary,” says Michel, “Kazakhstan has a very high standard of living for a Peace Corps country.” Unofficially, the situation was more complicated. Not only did Kazakhstan have the highest rate of assaults on Peace Corps volunteers, but the Kazakh authorities were also eager to rid the country of Western organizations. “The Peace Corps administration told us: in three days you need to be in Almaty, so buy your tickets, pack your things, and say your goodbyes,” Michel recalls. “The second we flew out of Kazakhstan, I was ready to continue studying the region.”

“I’m currently the Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, as well as a writer, analyst, and investigative journalist working on topics ranging from kleptocracy, illicit finance, dark money, foreign lobbying, and foreign interference to the legacies of Russian and Soviet colonialism. My first book—AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History, out now from St. Martin’s Press—centers on America’s transformation into the world’s greatest offshore haven, and what that means for the rest of us.

Foreign Agents How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World (also from St. Martin’s Press, and available for pre-order),” reveals the devastating scope and impact of the foreign lobbying industry in Washington—and how American law firms, PR agencies, consultants, think tanks, universities, and more became foot-soldiers for despotic regimes around the world, threatening democracy both abroad and in the U.S.

“I’ve testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on kleptocracy and oligarchs, and I received my Master’s degree in Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe Studies from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute.

My writing has appeared in outlets like Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Vox, The New Republic, POLITICO Magazine, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Just Security, Teen Vogue, Bellingcat, NBC, CNN, The Spectator, ThinkProgress, Quartz, The American Prospect, The American Interest, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), The Bulwark, openDemocracy, The Guardian, Texas Monthly, The National Review, World Politics Review, Al Jazeera, Slate, GEN, The Daily Beast, Roads & Kingdoms, Talking Points Memo, EurasiaNet, Houston Chronicle, Jamestown, Moscow Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Business Insider, among a host of other outlets.

The Peace Corps withdrew its Volunteers from Kazakhstan in 2011 after an 18-year program. The agency cited a number of reasons for the pullout, including security concerns, sexual assaults, and the country’s economic and infrastructural expansion. However, some documents have cast doubt on these justifications.