"Foreign Agents" is a scary-good journey into the world of international lobbying and political maneuvering. Michel’s storytelling grabs you from the start, delivering a mix of context and the "so what?" answers that keep you engaged until the last page.
Michel skillfully manages multiple storylines, each twist keeping you eager to read more (I often found myself reading before bed and staying up well past my regular bedtime).
"Foreign Agents" tackles themes like loyalty, power, and the ethical challenges of espionage. Michel presents a world where right and wrong are not always clear, making you think about the true costs of secrecy and the lengths people go to protect their countries. These themes add layers to the story and leave a lasting impact.
Michel tells the story in a clear and engaging way, making the story easy to follow while still rich in detail. The dialogue feels natural, bringing characters to life and increasing the tension in every scene. Michel’s passion for the genre bleeds out of the pages, creating a story that is both smart and exciting.
"Foreign Agents" stands out in the espionage genre with its gripping action and meaningful emotional depth. Michel delivers a story that is not only entertaining but also thought-provoking. This novel is a great choice for anyone who enjoys fast-paced political and international intelligence journalism reads.

This novel was very eye opening for me and I enjoyed reading and learning from it. I felt that it was easy to comprehend and that it is very well written. I appreciated that the author took more of a neutral stance and appears to value the sharing of knowledge over the division of beliefs and sides found and encouraged in politics. I was vaguely aware of foreign agents and political manipulation but didn’t realize how entrenched in the history of the United States this practice is. Casey Michel is very knowledgeable and is doing important work on behalf of transparency and democracy. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in politics and cares about transparency and democracy writ large.

I want to thank NetGalley and the author for providing me with an advanced review copy of this book.

I found the contents of this book sadly not surprising. It documents a recurring theme of corruption and in some ways treason although not strictly legally. It shows that people and organizations have, are and will sell the interests on this country in pursuit of money, and those in power will willingly turn a blind eye. Why? Because, although there is a distinct emphasis on the right/conservative/republican side, this issue of letting foreign interests twist the USA's actions unfortunately infects all sides of the political spectrum. The reason is that it benefits all participants financially and since money runs this country's politics and elections it should not surprise.

The book is well researched and written. The one star deduction in my rating is because I found one inaccuracy, in its repeated citing of Richard Grenell as CIA Director when I'm pretty sure he was Acting Director of National Intelligence for a few months. This made me question the accuracy a little but I am hoping it was corrected from the advance copy I was reading. And it in no way detracts from the thesis being presented.

Good book and recommended.

I'm still working through this book because the subject matter is heavy but my thoughts so far is the material is very clear and the author clearly cares about this subject and making a more informed population. I don't normally read books like this but glad that I did.

Thanks to Casey Michel, Netgalley and St. Martins Press for allowing me to read this ARC.

Do politics and political shenanigans get you upset? Do you find yourself frustrated at the seemingly ridiculous stream of nonsense that governments involve themselves with that have nothing to do with serving their people? If you answered yes, then this book is for you. This is a detailed overview of how lobbyists came into being and how much power rests with these unelected political people or groups. This account exposes those who wield their political power "advising" governments as to how a decision or law should be passed. They are surprisingly able to influence those in politics and may actually represent other countries rather than our own (or the one where the have citizenship). Examples are given of this influence peddling going back to Hitler and Mussolini times, and into current day with Paul Manafort. Manafort often represented another country's interests even when living and working for the USA. A large number of citizens have a sense of amoral activities at the highest level of government and this book does a wonderful and compelling job of explaining how pervasive this practice is.
This is a well crafted summary and explanation of how foreign lobbyists operate and should have us all thinking about what mechanisms can act as safe guards against this being used against us as a nation. This is a thought provoking book that explains something that more of us should understand in order to protect our country from these influences.

#ForeignAgents #Netgalley #StMartinsPress

The foreign influence became a hot topic in the last decade, so learning how it was possible to grow on such a scale was interesting for me.

This book is a well written story of – quoting the author – „the creation and expansion of the world of foreign lobbying in the United States, and the transformation of American industries into platforms for foreign governments trying to upend and redirect American policy”. After giving some historical and theoretical background, it focuses on the most famous representative of this phenomena: Paul Manafort.

Very sobering read.

Thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Shocking, the policies that allow those in the government and lobbyists to work as Foreign Agents bringing in business for Dictatorship Regimes that that have Horrendous Human Rights Policies. The idea is to Whitewash the Image of said country and make it appear reputable. Also, the country can gain access directly to the top Politicians and Lawmakers. Foreign Money became an issue during the Trump Administration and Paul Montfort was certainly the most unethical person doing this work. He had a big impact on the outcome for Ukraine, but certainly was not the only one doing this. It was going on long before Trump was in office and continues today. Biden was calling for an end to any Foreign Influence, yet when he was in office, did not follow through on that promise. This is legal, yet not documented for US Citizens to be aware of. Completely Corrupt. It’s time to become informed and insist these practices stop completely. Very Good, but Disturbing Book. Well Resourced.

Thank you NetGalley, Casey Michel, and St. Martin’s for a copy of this book. I leave reviews on all books I read.

Foreign agents, how American lobbyist and lawmakers threaten democracy around the world by Casey Michelle. This author has written some really great books on white collar crime but I do believe foreign agents is his best yet. From the duplicitous Mr. Lee, in the 1930s to the unscrupulous Manafordd in 2017. it never ceases to amaze me the things people will give away from money including their countries safety and freedom. With the dress rehearsals for lobbying, starting as long ago is Washington’s second term it has definitely reached such a vast momentum it is now a household word and an occupation college students or educating their self to become. In most cases in my opinion lobbyist are no better than Spin Doctors and yet they have affected almost every president anyone alive can remember. They take money and will be the beggar for any cause irregardless of the effects even if it means American freedom and involving their self in such treasonous activities as in the case with Trump and most of his cabinet. This is it a full compendium, as it only deals with a few evil doers but it is well researched comprehensively told and also interesting. Mr. Casey has quickly proven himself to be a legitimate contender in the political nonfiction novel and this is just another example of that. What a great job in an interesting book. #NetGalley,#Saint Martin’s press, #MichelleCasey, #ForeignAgents,

Fascinating and more than a bit scary to read more about how these agents influence American politics. As a journalism major, I was intrigued to read more about Ivy Lee who I learned about in college. But we never learned about his fascist beliefs or his ties to Nazi Germany.

The writing was rather dry for my taste & it was a lot to take in. Obviously a lot of research went into this one.

DNF @40%

eBook - 2 Stars
This book is unfortunately way above my pay-grade and as I realized as I was listening today, I just wasn't getting much in this at all and was zoning off or doing other things and not really paying attention and knew it was time to give up [even after going back and re-listening to some of it]. The parts I did understand were very good and interesting and I think that this will be a popular book amongst those who know and understand lobbying [I was hoping to learn more about that, but I just couldn't get a grasp of it] and I recommend it to all of them. As someone who loves to learn new things, I am disappointed that I had to give this up.

Audiobook - 4 Stars
Joseph Dwyer is a new-to-me narrator and I have added to my "like to listen to" list as he does a really excellent job in narrating a difficult book. I hope that I get a chance to listen to him again.

I was invited to read/review this book by the publisher, St. Martin's Press and I thank them, Casey Michel, Joseph Dwyer - Narrator and Macmillan Audio for providing the eBook and audiobook ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Unreadable Diatribe on Bribers as Villains, and Bribees as Victims
I did not read this blurb closely enough when I requested this book. This is not what I expected, or a type of book I have seen before. American lobbyists as a threat to democracy? This is all too conspiratorial for a book published by St. Martin’s, and I’ve just finished two hyper-conspiratorial series… The book opens with some need statistics on “Foreign Agents”. Apparently, there has been a 43% decline in “staff overseeing foreign lobbyists”, an 86% decline in audits, and only 3 convictions of lobbyists in the 50 years pre-2016. Doesn’t the latter statistic basically mean that there has been almost no proof of illegal activity by these lobbyists? Then, there is the odd statistic that 114 Congressmen became foreign agents between 1990-2016, as reported by Politico in a 2016 article. American politicians have certainly profited from having so many spies courting them, as lobbyists have spent $4.1 billion since 2016. Apparently Chinese and American lobbyists have had an oversized increase of 476-584% between 2017-21. It was recently in the news that Trump was bribed with a $10 campaign donation by the Egyptian government in 2016 in exchange for him freeing billions that had been locked up over human rights violations after a tyrant seized power in a coup. There were also stories that US sanctions are at an all-time high. There are 38 countries with current active sanctions, including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, but also Congo, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Venezuela, West Bank, and Ukraine… It seems that the US is overusing sanctions because they profit US businesses, especially when other countries have to also bring sanctions and this means less international competition for American goods. So, China and Russia have been forced to increase these donations because they are responding to tariffs and sanctions in a manner that seems to be the only way to convince US politicians: by bribing them. But US politicians have learned that if they keep sanctions/ tariffs in place while collecting bribes, they can make 500% more money… Perhaps this is just where the trend was headed, and it reached a fever-pitch in Trump’s term… but I think it has kept moving forwards since Biden took over. Senator Bob Menendez was found guilty of taking bribes from Egypt as an unregistered foreign agent just a few weeks ago, in July 2024. He was initially charged in 2017 (these charges were from a 2015 case where a Florida eye doctor tried to buy his influence with vacations, campaign contributions), but the June 2022 raid uncovered new bribes in the gold bars etc. And Clarence Thomas had been receiving donations from Crow in 2011, and a vacation to the “Greek Islands” in 2007, a private jet trip gifted by Crow in 1997, though there was a spike in luxury-trips Thomas received between 2017-9, and there was at least one other trip during Biden’s term, as Crow sponsored an October 2021 trip to New York City. If Thomas did not report any trips in 2023 it might be only because of media coverage of this corruption that began appearing.
There are many great ways to have written a book on this subject. These would generally involve accusing nearly all American politicians of being corrupted by bribes from not only foreign but also domestic influence-paddlers. My new re-attribution series explains this problem began in Europe in the reign of monarchies. Specifically, in Britain, the monarchy managed to survive by holding complete control over the press without clearly disclosing this control. There were 6 active ghostwriters across the Renaissance, 11 in the 18th century and 12 in the 19th century, who were the only people who had access to expressing themselves in print. And they censored each other’s content to be maximally profitable to the monarchy and their capitalist monopolist donors. Britain is still ruled by a monarchy, but when some voting was allowed to bring in chosen by-the-people politicians, the choices they made were manipulated from the onset with bribes. It took bribes to win power, and bribes to keep it, and thus one wanted bribes in exchange for engaging in this corrupt system. Britain retained this exclusive Workshop until at least 1934. Public education had become available in around 1900, and people gradually become literate enough to be able to question the accuracy of reported propaganda. While before complete corruption of government allowed for such inhuman activities as slavery and colonialism, such corrupt political decisions could be criticized in the 1930s with the emergence of a bit of free press outside of the government’s control. The tensions between tyrants wanting to retain complete-control, and a suddenly conscious public gradually exploded in the two world wars. The winners of these conflicts were corrupt officials, because only they could have approved atomic bombing etc. What has changed is who is bribing who, why and with how much. The system of pay-to-play, or pay-for-policy, or pay-for-power, or pay-for-contracts has remained as it was in the Renaissance. No competitive scientific progress, or industrial innovation, or pro-human policies that help protect us from extinction can happen while this systemic corruption rules the world. Instead of describing how all this works in detail, this book is full of nonsense that seems to be designed as counter-propaganda. By making the anti-corruption activist author character seem unhinged, the message might be contradicted subversively.
The “Prologue: Bad Business”, describes Ivy Lee’s questioning by the US Congress just before his death in 1934 over his work in Germany for IG Farben. Lee had been protesting his company’s use of Nazi propaganda, while indirectly advising the Nazis, including Hitler, on adjusting their propaganda tactics. Instead of explaining this, the chapter digresses into philosophical ideas on “decorum”, the struggle between wealthy clients and “the masses”, and buried “controversies”. There are general mentions of unrelated American oligarchs that Lee also assisted. Farber is mentioned for the first time at the bottom of the first page. Some clarity is achieved on the second page. He had advised the Nazis to “establish closer relationships” or to bribe the “American press correspondents located in Germany” to manipulate them to communicate a softer translation of the Nazis’ propaganda that was digestible to the US audience. This section ends with the strange suggestion that something about this testimony killed Lee, but he died of a brain tumor at 57, which he might have been aware of before making this self-incriminating confession to Congress.
The next section picks up decades later, in 1986, with Jonas Savimbi. Again, the description is about how he looks and about communist philosophy, instead of just explaining what he was accused of doing. Though after a couple of digressive paragraphs about his “beard”, there is a report that he was guilty of placing women in “sexual slavery”, and crimes such as beating “to death a rival’s wife and children”. Paragraphs follow about the philosophy of him deciding to bribe Americans to oversee these crimes. There are some details about his bribes succeeding in him being welcomed at major news sources, and being created with a banquet by the American Conservative Union during his image-rehabilitation tour. In exchange for subversive bribes, American media changed the narrative and puffed his character, forgetting their own previous reports of his murders etc. But instead of explaining the facts of just who he bribed, with how much, and what specific media reports were positive, there are general ponderings about “American democracy” and “polite society”.
This is an unreadable book. Somebody must find news reports about each new name mentioned and read them before returning to these pages, as otherwise they would be constantly confused regarding just who is being accused of bribing officials next. The author seems to be very passionate about political philosophy of “kleptocracy” etc., but seems to fail to understand that readers just need the facts to reach these conclusions, instead of most of the text being taken up with propaganda without supporting evidence that cannot be found in common news reports. I do not recommend for anybody to read this book unless they are specialists in this field, and already know something about those accused. They might milk some useful information between the lines, and might be used to this avalanche of political rhetoric. I do hope somebody in the future will manage to write a coherent book on this subject, as it is indeed very much needed.
--Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Summer 2024 issue

All of the information is clear and there are breaks between each sections and each chapter so you can easily pause to reflect on what you've just learned and not feel overwhelmed by the amount of information

A must read !

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This book makes me so angry and in a good way. I’ve seen the revolving door work in DC, I’ve seen how much access to lobbyists have - the rich and the powerful always have. But to see just how amoral these foreign agents can be - and how money has infiltrated the academic institutions, think tanks, echo chambers. it was breathtakingly laid out in this book. We need people to read this book and harness their anger for change. It can be done

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book that looks at the history of foreign lobbyists in America, the trouble, they have caused, the lives ruined and how it is only going to get worse.

To paraphrase an odd line from both a book and movie, Money means never having to say you are sorry. Though occasionally even money needs to clean itself up, put on a new pair of clothes, as close to the common person as possible, and change the image a bit. Maybe give money to a school, or be called a a true friend of freedom from a political think tank, or get some arms from the United States to deal with that pesky protest asking for food that makes noon day naps so tough to take. Thankfully there are people whose morals never ask where the money is coming from and sometimes lack the intelligence to wonder why a junior senator from a dairy state is given so much money and chances to be on tv. To facilitate these deals, are lobbyists and agents whose only prerequisite is when does the money clear, and it there are lot of it. Nothing else matters. Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World by investigative journalist Casey Michel is both an important book to understand our current state of affairs, and a depressing book as it shows that nothing is going to change, for the spigot of cash to politicians is just too much of a flood to contain. '''

Influencing politicians started almost as soon as the ink was dry on the the Constitution, though it was started with the best of intentions. William Hull of Virginia traveled to the new Capitol with a mission, and an idea. Hull wanted to see how much the Constitution allowed him as a citizen to petition lawmakers for the good of Veterans of the War of Independence. Most of the men had been promised an amount of money, but for many reasons had never received it. Hull tried, but was more stopped by the fact the new nation really was broke, and couldn't pay any of its debts. However the idea of petitioning lawmakers was born. President Grant called these men lobbyists as they waited in his favorite hotel bar, waiting to beg things from him when he stopped for a tipple. The book covers the American backing of Belgiums claims to the Congo, which caused a genocide in the Congo that many Americans do not know. Senate investigations in the 1930's showed that Nazi's were trying to influence American politics, leading to a plan to limit foreign agents, a plan that was well meaning, but underserved. More incidents are explained, the duplicity of American universities, and politicians who have risen far above what their skill set is are also discussed. And of course the previous administration, which was awash in foreign cash, and foreign election aid. One that will only get worse if he returns again.

A book that is both breathtaking at it's look at history, and depressing as Americans know very little about how their governments are for sale on almost every level. Some of the amounts that people sell themselves for are such a pittance, one is almost embarrassed, and the fact that they don't care is far more depressing. Michel knows this subject well, and never bores or wags his finger too much at us for allowing this. The writing is very good, well sourced, and remarkably similar no matter what era it takes place in. History repeats, as does corruption and stupidity. The modern day discussions are very interesting as we literally saw most of this unfold, and yet most of these people are still walking around, pardoned, and going back to the same wells for cash and ways of doing business. And nothing changes.

I recommend this book to people who want to know why protesters are being beaten on college campuses, or why our government spends more overseas than it does in Flint cleaning the water. Much of why America is looked at sideways but a lot of people can be explained here. Our way of backing the worse people for jus about every job, as long as somehow, someway there is a few dollars in it just constantly amazes me. To quote another famous book, so it goes.

Foreign Agent by Casey Michel

Warning! As you read this book you will become angry. It does not matter if your politics are to the Right or to the Left. It is a book about how American greed along with amoral politics creates an American world where foreign dictators and corrupt companies can buy American talent to whitewash their image with the American public and of course our elected officials.
The book begins with Ivy Lee who used his skill to clean up a Rockefeller failure where Rockefeller’s security guard shot and killed 30 miners working at one of his mines. By the time Ivy was done it was the miner’s fault. America was not big enough or had enough money for Ivy so he took his talents to Europe where he made Mussolini and the Fascists, Stalin and the Communists and finally Hitler and the Nazis look presentable to the American public.
From there he focuses on the modern-day charlatan Paul Manafort who started working with despots in Africa before transferring his “talent” to Ukraine and finally Donald Trump.
But as Mr. Michel documents it is not just individuals in the US that take this money it is also Universities and think tanks that will polish the reputations of these dictators for money.
How can they do this ? The US laws are either non-existent, weak or not policed. It is clear why the laws are weak or do not exist as too many of the congressmen are either already accepting money from the lobbyists or hope to leave congress for more lucrative pastures after leaving office.
The book is well written, fair and has over 800 footnotes. As I started, this book will not be a read that leaves you seeing a brighter future ahead for America.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Aug. 27, 2024
“Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World”, by non-fiction writer and journalist Casey Michel is just what the title predicts- an investigative look at political lobbying and how foreign governments have been able to infiltrate the White House using manipulative methods.
In other words? The government (American and otherwise) is corrupt, immoral and manipulative, and has been since its inception. Are you surprised? Yeah, neither was I. Michel’s work starts off strong, as he discusses how the public relations career came to be by talking about Ivy Lee, who was a trailblazer in the field, and the work he initially did with influential people like the Rockefeller’s. This part of the novel was informative and interesting, even for a non-American.
As mentioned, I don’t live in the United States and although Canada is no shining example of how politicians should operate (far from it), I tend to not pay much attention to politics in my own country, let alone any other one. So perhaps it is this fatal flaw that contributed to the rest of Michel’s story simply dropping my interest.
The remainder of the novel was about the corruption of Paul Manafort and his influence on Donald Trump’s campaign, which I am not denying occurred (even those of us in the Great White North heard, and heard, and heard some more about this hot-button issue) I wasn’t really interested in this when it was actually happening, let alone many years later.
“Foreign Agents” is a good read for those with a strong love of (American) political history, but for the rest of us, it really just reiterates what we already know, or provides us with information we didn’t want or ask for.

It is a much needed expose on a phenomenon which is increasingly turning the US into an oligarchy rather than a democracy. The problem is that I just didn’t like it that much.

Casey Michel has a very well-researched and troubling book. He does give a number of bipartisan examples. However, he seems to have somewhat of a political lean to it and he reserves the biggest exposure to Paul Manafort. (maybe he deserves it?) Don't take that to mean that it is a hit piece, but he seems to go a little bit out of his way to take shots at Donald Trump. He does counterpoint that with some comments about Bill, and especially Hillary, Clinton, but he keeps coming back to Trump. Still, there is a lot of troubling information in this book about the influence foreign governments have on the American government and its policies and expenditures. Michel traces this back to the mid 1800s and the purchase of Alaska. He brings it into today, adding an epilogue outlining the arrest of Robert Menendez and his gold bars. Generally a well-written book. It seems to be a call for someone to do something about the influence that these foreign actors have on us. He makes a pretty good case.

Foreign agents lifts the curtain on lobbying for the United States foreign lobbying industry. This group has influenced policy and given power to dictatorships without the knowledge of the general public. A behind the scenes look at foreign lobbying and the threat to democracy.

An eye-opening and unsettling exploration of the infiltration of foreign lobbying in American politics. It was fascinating to learn about the origins of public relations and the evolution of foreign lobbying. Some truly terrible people out there! It is an intense read.

Thank you very much to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.