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
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 [...]
Bryce Barros on China’s Economic Influence with CEPA
China is reshaping the world’s economy. From infrastructure and investment to manufacturing and supply chain dependency, Chinese economic influence is becoming an increasingly important topic for policymakers in North America and Europe. How should [...]
Zack Cooper on ‘Net Assessment’: The Color of Money
Chris, Zack, and Melanie sit down to discuss U.S. sanctions programs and how to make them more effective. In a recent War on the Rocks article focused on sanctions, Edward Fishman argues that the United States needs to take a hard look at our econom [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses How the U.K. Can Combat Russian Dirty Money with Chatham House
Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph joined Chatham House for an event that explored how the Kremlin uses Russian money in London to exert influence over British politics. The United Kingdom has long attracted money from criminal and Kremlin-linked so [...]