WASHINGTON – After nearly five years of congressional requests, official Freedom of Information Act filings and litigation, it still remains a mystery as to why the Justice Department has yet to require Al Jazeera to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite asking the Qatari government funded entity to do so more than 3 years ago.
Following requests by Congress in both 2018 and 2019 about Al Jazeera’s need to file a FARA registration, Empower Oversight filed a FOIA request in January 2022. The request sought documents related to the department’s failure to require Al Jazeera to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and its refusal to answer congressional oversight questions probing the controversy. After the Justice Department failed to respond to the FOIA request, Empower filed suit in January 2023. Only after months of litigation did the department turn over any documents, which are incomplete, heavily redacted and woefully out-of-date.
The FARA website does not yet show a registration for Al Jazeera.
To see the documents, please click here.