Casey Michel Keynote Speaker

Award-winning Author & Investigative Journalist
Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation
Author, American Kleptocracy & Foreign Agents

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Casey Michel's Biography

Casey Michel is an award-winning investigative author and journalist, and is currently the head of the Human Rights Foundation’s Combating Kleptocracy Program. His writing on international crime, foreign lobbying, geopolitics, and national security has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and many more outlets. He has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and more.

His first book, American Kleptocracy, investigated the U.S.’s transformation into a center for illicit finance and money laundering, and was named by The Economist as one of the “best books to read to understand financial crime.” His forthcoming book, Foreign Agents, will investigate the rise and impact of the foreign lobbying industry in the U.S., and has already received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus.

At Human Rights Foundation, Casey leads ground-breaking investigative projects examining how dictatorships target and manipulate audiences and legislators in dictatorships, using everything from PR shops and law firms to think tanks and universities. He is also the co-host of Human Rights Foundation’s “Dissidents and Dictators” podcast, interviewing those on the frontlines of the fight for democracy. When not writing on illicit finance, Casey also writes and comments widely on Russian affairs, the war in Ukraine, and especially Russian colonialism, with the BBC describing him as the person who “kickstarted talk of decolonizing Russia.”

Financial Crime and the Future of Democracy

For decades, international money laundering networks have thrived, far beyond the reach of investigators and authorities. But it's only in recent years that we've begun to pay attention to how those networks affect everything from national security to democracy writ large - and all the ways these networks threaten the rest of us.

How do these international criminal networks actually operate in the 21st century? Who is helping them profit? And what can we actually do about the problem?

Meet the Enablers

In order to succeed, dictatorships around the world have relied on a series of so-called "enablers" to enrich regimes, open doors in democracies, and expand their power along the way. These "enablers" help act as guides for dictatorships, showing them all of the weak points of democracies, and illustrating how to navigate everything from lobbying networks to democratic economies writ large.

But who, exactly, are these "enablers"? How have they transformed into the best friends that dictatorships could ask for? Why have they been allowed to operate for so long? And how can we stop them?

Russia, Ukraine, and the Future of Empire

Russia's 2022 expanded invasion of Ukraine, as well as Ukraine's successful effort to thwart much of Russia's efforts, took much of the world by surprise - but not everyone. Casey was one of the few voices calling not just to prepare Ukraine for Russia's full-throated invasion, but highlighting how futile and unsuccessful Russia's initial invasion would be. And that's for one reason: unlike many other analysts and commentators, Casey focuses on Russia's history of colonialism - and how that colonialism continues to propel Russia's policies.

This legacy is the missing piece in understanding Russia under Putin - and to understanding Russia as the only European empire that's never even begun the process of decolonization. Re-understanding Russia as part and parcel of the broader story of European colonialism - and recognizing the colonies targeted by Russia - is the key to finally ending Russia's imperial threats, and restoring a Europe that is free, democratic, and, at long last, at peace.