Dossier mode
The Foreign Agent
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Israeli Influence on the United States hub.
The Foreign Agent.
Donald Trump's former campaign manager registered with the US government as a paid agent of a foreign state — and the job, in a foreign official's own words, was to keep young American conservatives from turning against Israel.
Brad Parscale's Clock Tower X registered under FARA as an agent of the State of Israel, working through Havas for Israel's Foreign Ministry to run a Gen-Z-targeted influence campaign — built on AI content and search manipulation and wired into a US conservative media network he helps run.
The FARA/FEC-documented core graded FACT; the murkier clipper money-trail (ClipIt ownership, a $20M crypto wallet, a Turning Point troll-farm link) graded SOME SMOKE — raised as questions, not asserted.
Registered: a Trump campaign manager, as Israel's agent.
On Sept 18, 2025, Clock Tower X LLC — founded by Brad Parscale, Trump's 2020 campaign manager — registered under FARA (#7649) as an agent of the State of Israel, working through Havas Media Germany for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The disclosed deal began at ~$1.5M/month (about $9M); reporting on the DOJ filings describes a broader Parscale contract around $46.5M.
The real aim: keep young conservatives pro-Israel.
Packaged as a fight against online antisemitism, the campaign had another stated aim: Time reported an Israeli Foreign Ministry official saying it was about 'preventing young conservatives from turning against Israel.' The tactics fit — Gen-Z-focused content across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts. We grade FACT that this aim was stated by an Israeli official.
The methods: AI answers, search manipulation, a media network.
The Parscale contract included a plan to manipulate how AI systems answer questions about Gaza, plus SEO to shape what surfaces online. And the FARA filing's Services Agreement draft pledged to integrate the campaign's 'narrative messaging into Salem Media Network properties' — Salem being the conservative-Christian broadcaster where Parscale is chief strategy officer. A foreign-state message, engineered for AI and search and piped through a US network by one of its own executives.
Who got paid — from two sides at once.
The money map from FARA and FEC filings shows the same operatives drawing checks from Israel's campaign and from US political committees at the same time: Israel's campaign (via Clock Tower X and Havas) paid Parscale's firms tens of millions and sent ~$4.4M for 'media placement' to a firm run by GOP operative Mike Shields, whose other firm was paid ~$2.98M by Speaker Mike Johnson's campaign. Firms taking a foreign government's money and a sitting Speaker's at once is the documented overlap.
Where the record thins: the clip-farm, the wallet, the troll link.
A single investigative thread pushes further: that an opaque pay-per-repost 'clipper' operation, ClipIt, is run by a 23-year-old in Latvia and sits near this campaign; that clippers were paid from a ~$20M crypto wallet traced to a stablecoin system, one thanking the boss for a 'Political Payout of December'; and that the attack operation 'reeks of' a Turning Point-linked troll farm run by operative Jake Hoffman (the reporting's own hedge). Specific and serious, but largely one outlet and, in places, inference. SOME SMOKE — raised as questions, with Turning Point's denial carried.
How this page is graded.
- FACT: the Sept 2025 FARA registration of Clock Tower X as Israel's agent (via Havas, for the MFA); the contract figures; the stated aim ('preventing young conservatives from turning against Israel,' per an Israeli official to Time); the AI-answer/SEO methods and the Salem Media integration; and the dual-paid firms (Parscale, Mike Shields) per FARA/FEC filings.
- SOME SMOKE (posed, not asserted): the clip-farm 'ClipIt' and its ownership, the $20M crypto wallet and 'political payout,' and the Turning Point/Jake Hoffman troll-farm tie — largely one outlet's thread, with self-hedges; Turning Point's denial carried.
- FENCE: FARA registration is lawful disclosure, not a crime; not all pro-Israel advocacy is a covert operation. We document the registered influence operation, not criminality.
Why it matters.
FARA exists so Americans can know when the voice in their feed is paid for by a foreign government. This shows how thin that protection has become: the disclosure exists, but the campaign is built precisely to not read like foreign messaging — engineered into AI answers, search, podcasts, and a trusted conservative network so a young American meets it as the organic opinion of their own side. It's the advertising-weapon story from the other end: not spyware hidden in an ad, but a foreign state's politics hidden in your feed.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenThe full, primary FARA filing text and the complete roster of subcontractors and payments beyond the compiled map.
- OpenIndependent confirmation (beyond one outlet) of ClipIt's ownership, the crypto-wallet trail, and any Turning Point/Jake Hoffman connection.
- OpenWhat, concretely, the AI-answer-manipulation plan on Gaza produced, and whether any platform acted on it.