“The United States Foreign Agents Registration Act is to people who are acting on behalf of a foreign government, not people who are doing legitimate nongovernment organization work, who are doing humanitarian work, who are doing civil society work. It’s a very different type of thing,” said Matthew Miller, Spokesperson of the US Department of State at the daily press briefing on May 7.

The US Department of State Spokesperson answered the question: “Can you explain why is it okay for the United States to have a law on foreign agents and it’s not okay for Georgia, Russia to have one?”

“So the difference is in the nature of those laws. When you see the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act, it is to people who are acting on behalf of a foreign government, not people who are doing legitimate nongovernment organization work, who are doing humanitarian work, who are doing civil society work. It’s a very different type of thing.

I’ve seen those false equivalencies drawn in the past. And when you look at the text of the proposal in Georgia and the text of the proposal that has been passed due to Kremlin influence in other countries, they are very different than the type of law that we have on the books here in the United States,” he said.