Attorney General v. Wynn: D.C. Circuit Agrees That DOJ Cannot Compel Retroactive FARA Registration

Last Friday, in Attorney General of the United States v. Wynn, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit confirmed the temporally limited scope of registration obligations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), holding that DOJ cannot compel individuals to register under FARA after the end of their alleged agency relationship with a foreign principal. The ruling affirmed the D.C. district court's 2022 dismissal of the government's lawsuit to compel the registration by casino magnate Stephen Wynn for allegedly acting as an agent of China during the early days of the Trump administration. Judge Patricia Millett's opinion for the unanimous D.C. Circuit panel explained that this civil enforcement action was governed by a 1987 D.C. Circuit precedent involving a criminal FARA prosecution, United States v. McGoff, which construed FARA as imposing registration requirements only on currently existing agency relationships. As of this post's publication date, DOJ