Casey Michel

I'm currently the Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, as well as a writer, analyst, and investigative journalist working on topics ranging from kleptocracy, illicit finance, dark money, foreign lobbying, and foreign interference to the legacies of Russian and Soviet colonialism. My first book—AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History, out now from St. Martin’s Press—centers on America’s transformation into the world’s greatest offshore haven, and what that means for the rest of us. AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY is one of the “best books to read to understand financial crime” (The Economist), “masterful” (Financial Times), “brilliantly clear” (The Atlantic), a “compact grenade of a book” (The Australian), and “make[s] the case that the world’s leading tax haven is America” (New York Review of Books). I’m currently finalizing my second book, "FOREIGN AGENTS: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World (also from St. Martin’s Press, and now available for pre-order)," which will reveal the devastating scope and impact of the foreign lobbying industry in Washington—and how American law firms, PR agencies, consultants, think tanks, universities, and more became foot-soldiers for despotic regimes around the world, threatening democracy both abroad and in the U.S. I’ve testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on kleptocracy and oligarchs, and I received my Master's degree in Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe Studies from Columbia University's Harriman Institute. My writing has appeared in outlets like Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Vox, The New Republic, POLITICO Magazine, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Just Security, Teen Vogue, Bellingcat, NBC, CNN, The Spectator, ThinkProgress, Quartz, The American Prospect, The American Interest, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), The Bulwark, openDemocracy, The Guardian, Texas Monthly, The National Review, World Politics Review, Al Jazeera, Slate, GEN, The Daily Beast, Roads & Kingdoms, Talking Points Memo, EurasiaNet, Houston Chronicle, Jamestown, Moscow Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Business Insider, among a host of other outlets.