in 1980, the court ruled that receiving “bona fide subsidy” from a foreign source does not render the recipient as a foreign agent unless the foreign direction or control is established.
the grants which it received were linked to specific programs it should have carried out, thus, it fell under “request”.
appellate court found that even the identical leadership and the financial connection were not sufficient to grant summary judgement and a full trial was required since mere provision of funds was insufficient
If that’s right, then it seems the question here then whether Russia was just giving money to keep afloat influencers who would have gone with this nonsense anyways, or if Russia had more direct control via request making.
I suspect it’s the second one, but it seems a full trial would be needed to prove it, and I can imagine the handlers being really good at making sure there was never any paperwork to use as evidence that “requests” were made.
Alas, Wikipedia has a good explanation on this point, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_agent#United_States
If that’s right, then it seems the question here then whether Russia was just giving money to keep afloat influencers who would have gone with this nonsense anyways, or if Russia had more direct control via request making.
I suspect it’s the second one, but it seems a full trial would be needed to prove it, and I can imagine the handlers being really good at making sure there was never any paperwork to use as evidence that “requests” were made.