A range of mainstream American publications printed paid propaganda for the government of Malaysia, much of it focused on the campaign against a pro-democracy figure there.
The payments to conservative American opinion writers — whose work appeared in outlets from the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner to the Washington Times to National Review and RedState — emerged in a filing this week to the Department of Justice. The filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act outlines a campaign spanning May 2008 to April 2011 and led by Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit, who received $389,724.70 under the contract and paid smaller sums to a series of conservative writers.
Trevino lost his column at the Guardian last year after allegations that his relationship with Malaysian business interests wasn't being disclosed in columns dealing with Malaysia.
[...]
Trevino acknowledged that he shouldn't have lied to BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith, then at Politico, when this first came up in 2011.
"When Ben Smith contacted me in July 2011, I ought to have come clean with him at the time," he said.
As for why he waited until five years after the fact to register with FARA, Trevino said he didn't know he was supposed to have registered until recently.
[...]
Trevino terminated his relationship with Malaysian interests when he joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he said.
Buzzfeed
The payments to conservative American opinion writers — whose work appeared in outlets from the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner to the Washington Times to National Review and RedState — emerged in a filing this week to the Department of Justice. The filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act outlines a campaign spanning May 2008 to April 2011 and led by Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit, who received $389,724.70 under the contract and paid smaller sums to a series of conservative writers.
Trevino lost his column at the Guardian last year after allegations that his relationship with Malaysian business interests wasn't being disclosed in columns dealing with Malaysia.
[...]
Trevino acknowledged that he shouldn't have lied to BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith, then at Politico, when this first came up in 2011.
"When Ben Smith contacted me in July 2011, I ought to have come clean with him at the time," he said.
As for why he waited until five years after the fact to register with FARA, Trevino said he didn't know he was supposed to have registered until recently.
[...]
Trevino terminated his relationship with Malaysian interests when he joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he said.
Buzzfeed
Oh, hell, yeah. We'll take him. This is Texas.
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