Cori Bush registers as paid foreign agent after labeling AIPAC a ‘foreign actor’

Justice Department records show the former “Squad” member filed a short-form registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on October 28, listed under the name Cori Bush-Merritts and registrant The Truth and Conciliation Commission.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Bush and her friend and campaign manager, Stephany Spaulding, signed a contract with the International Federation for Rights and Development, a Brussels-based nonprofit, to coordinate delegations through January.

Her contract provides $25,000 combined for the two women, including $6,000 in monthly compensation and $7,000 for FARA compliance. Their responsibilities include recruiting current and former members of Congress, prominent Democratic figures, and other political leaders to participate in the trips.

The arrangement follows Bush’s repeated attacks on AIPAC and its political spending.

On her campaign website, Bush says she helped others “speak up against Israel and foreign actors like the Israeli lobby AIPAC.” The same passage accuses the organization of supplying “the $9 million that bought the election.”

AIPAC is an American organization funded exclusively by Americans, which does not receive funding or direction from the Israeli government. All of its board members are American citizens.

Bush also targeted Rep. Wesley Bell, who defeated her in Missouri’s 2024 Democratic primary. During her unsuccessful 2026 comeback campaign, she accused Bell of being beholden to AIPAC.

“Wesley Bell is a former Republican campaign manager who is bought and paid for by AIPAC,” she wrote in a July post.

After her 2024 defeat, Bush directed an explicit warning at the organization.

“They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she told supporters. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”

“All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid,” she added. The Biden administration condemned the remarks.

The nonprofit now paying Bush, IFRD, is led by Palestinian filmmaker Gamaal El Attar; however, the financial backers of the group are unknown.

Bush visited the West Bank in October, posting photographs with her husband while helping a Palestinian American landowner clear vegetation from his property. She later appeared with the landowner, Yasser Alkam, on Joy Reid’s podcast, where she compared her treatment by the Israeli military to Jim Crow, according to the report.

The Free Beacon said IFRD has also arranged West Bank visits involving other American activists and elected officials. It is unknown if Bush recruited those participants or coordinated with journalists on the nonprofit’s behalf.