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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Trump campaign (all times local):
7 p.m.
Criminal prosecutions are rare for people who fail to register as foreign agents. That is according to a top Justice Department official who testified Wednesday about an obscure law receiving new attention amid investigations into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general, told Senate lawmakers that the Foreign Agents Registration Act — a law aimed at ensuring transparency about lobbying efforts done in the U.S. at the direction of foreign governments or principals — contains multiple exemptions for registration and requires proof that someone intended to break the law by failing to disclose their work.
A watchdog report from the Justice Department's inspector general last year found that the number of FARA registrations had declined in the last two decades and that prosecutions and civil enforcement actions were rare.
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1:55 p.m.
Former Democratic Sen. Carl Levin is providing information to special counsel Robert Mueller and Senate intelligence investigators about Ike Kaveladze, a man with Russian business ties who attended a 2016 meeting with senior Trump officials.
Levin has called Kaveladze a "poster child" for using hidden ownership of American corporations to launder money.
Levin investigated the practice in 2000 as the top Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In a letter to Mueller and the Senate intelligence panel Wednesday, he provides documents he released at the time.
He also notes that the panel subpoenaed wire transfer records of bank accounts established by Kaveladze and that the committee should still have them in its archives.
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10:45 a.m.
A top Justice Department official is explaining why criminal prosecutions are rare for people who fail to register as foreign agents.
Adam Hickey is a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's national security division.
He says the law contains multiple exemptions for registration and there's a burden on prosecutors to prove that the failure to register with the Justice Department was out of willfulness.
The law, known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, has received renewed attention as federal investigators probe potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, belatedly registered in June for political consulting work he did for a Ukrainian political party. He acknowledged that he coached party members on how to interact with U.S. government officials.
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10:28 a.m.
The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are criticizing the FBI and the Justice Department for lax enforcement of a law that requires registrations of foreign agents in the United States.
The law, known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, has received renewed attention as federal investigators probe potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, belatedly registered in June with the Justice Department for political consulting work he did for a Ukrainian political party. He acknowledged that he coached party members on how to interact with U.S. government officials.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, says there's been weak enforcement of the law for decades.
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4:28 a.m.
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman will not be testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as originally scheduled, after the committee rescinded its subpoena.
The committee withdrew its subpoena for Paul Manafort late Tuesday after he agreed to turn over documents and to continue negotiating about setting up an interview with the panel. That's according to Taylor Foy, a spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman. The committee also removed Donald Trump Jr. from the list of witnesses scheduled for Wednesday's public hearing.
The panel has sought to talk with Manafort about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in New York with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, among other issues including his foreign political work on behalf of Ukrainian interests.
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