Authoritarian regimes like Russia and China use malign finance—the funding of foreign political parties, candidates, campaigns, well-connected elites, or politically influential groups, often through non-transparent structures designed to obfuscate ties to a nation state or its proxies—to interfere in democracies. Find ASD’s work on malign finance and the threat it poses to democracy on this page.
Interference Matters
Russia Is Still Finding Willing Partners Throughout Europe
Kristine Berzina and Josh Rudolph Talk the Geopolitics of Nord Stream 2 on ‘The Power Vertical’
It was always going to be a difficult needle to thread. The Biden administration clearly views Russia’s Nord Stream-2 natural gas pipeline as a geopolitical project that threatens European energy security and that of Ukraine and eastern flank NATO a [...]
Josh Rudolph in Foreign Affairs: The Fight Against Corruption Needs Economists
The U.S. Treasury Department must make it a priority, Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph argues in Foreign Affairs. Combating corruption and kleptocracy has traditionally been an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy: a goal that most policymakers c [...]
Coordinating the War on Corruption
Executive Summary The Biden administration has a historic opportunity to unify U.S. domestic and foreign policy through an aggressive mission to combat corruption and kleptocracy. Middle-class Americans are frustrated by perceptions of corruption [...]
Josh Rudolph Talks Sanctioning Russia on ‘The Power Vertical’
How do you sanction a problem like Russia? For nearly a decade, the United States and its allies have been levying sanctions against Moscow in an effort to deter its revanchist behavior and contain its malign influence activities. And over this per [...]
How to Structure a Foreign Malign Influence Center
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) confirmed to Politico that it is working to establish a Foreign Malign Influence Center. The center, which was first authorized as part of the 2020 Defense Authorization bill, wil [...]
Regulating Beneficial Ownership for National Security
Key Point Beneficial ownership reform offers a historic opportunity—if strongly implemented—to build resilience against what has become a leading national security threat: malign actors funded by and weaponizing the proceeds of kleptocracy to harm t [...]
Josh Kirschenbaum Discusses Transparency Loopholes in Investment Funds on ‘Bribe, Swindle, or Steal’
Josh Kirschenbaum joined TRACE International's "Bribe, Swindle, or Steal" to discuss investment funds and the gaping loophole they create through which vast sums of money can move with no accountability. [...]
Josh Rudolph in Just Security: Limited Sanctions Will Not Deter Putin, But They Are a Fine Start
The Russia sanctions announced by the Biden administration on Thursday did not impose severe financial costs on Moscow, although the measures are stronger than those of the Trump administration because they are credibly reinforced by the president’s [...]
Josh Rudolph in The Hill: Close the Avenues of Foreign Meddling
In his farewell address, President George Washington warned about “the insidious wiles of foreign influence.” In Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) recent statement supporting some provisions in the For the People Act (S. 1), he voiced a modern echo of Wa [...]
Adversarial Avenues: Ten Bipartisan Ways to Make a Bill Like S. 1 Close Loopholes Autocrats Exploit to Meddle in U.S. Politics
Introduction and Summary In his push for bipartisan efforts on voting rights legislation, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) warned that “the lack of transparency in many campaign finance rules provides multiple avenues for foreign and national adversaries [...]
Josh Rudolph in Foreign Policy: Congress Can Do Better to Fight Weaponized Corruption
The U.S. government must reimagine FinCEN as an essential one-stop shop to support law enforcement with sophisticated financial intelligence and formidable analytic capabilities, Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph and Gary Kalman write in Foreign Po [...]
Lindsay Gorman in Foreign Policy: Pineapple War Shows Taiwan Won’t Be Bullied by Beijing
If democracies are to stand up to Chinese coercion, they will have to join forces, Emerging Technologies Fellow Lindsay Gorman writes in Foreign Policy. This month, China banned imports of Taiwanese pineapples, the latest in a string of punitive t [...]