Follow the Money
Registers, audits and blacklists: where public money and private influence leave a trail.
10 documents · 1938–2026 · 8 issuers
Money is the most documented thing governments do and the least read. These are the registers and investigations that reveal who pays, who receives, and who looked away.
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Who is paid to represent foreign governments in Washington.
- 1938 QA-0096DOJ · Database
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings
Since 1938 people who lobby or do PR in the U.S. for foreign governments and parties have had to register, and their filings show contracts, payments and the 'informational materials' they spread.
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The two-page opinion that created the super PAC.
- 2010 QA-0085FEC · Legal opinion
FEC Advisory Opinion 2010-11 (Commonsense Ten)
The FEC opinion, following Citizens United and SpeechNow.org, that let a political committee making only independent expenditures raise unlimited contributions.
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A regulator that was handed the fraud and missed it.
- 2009 QA-0084SEC OIG · Report
Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme (OIG-509, public version)
The SEC Inspector General's account of how the agency received credible complaints about Madoff, including Harry Markopolos's detailed submissions from 2000 onward, and conducted examinations that never verified his trading.
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The 2008 crisis, officially explained.
- 2011 QA-0061FCIC · Report
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report (FCIC, 2011)
The official commission report on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, concluding it was avoidable and pointing to failures in regulation, corporate governance and risk management.
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The tax agency's screening criteria, audited.
- 2013 QA-0074TIGTA · Report
Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review (TIGTA 2013-10-053)
The audit that found the IRS had flagged applications from Tea Party and other groups by name and policy position instead of activity, with long delays and intrusive questions.
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Aid flows in, offshore deposits rise.
- 2020 QA-0112World Bank · Study
Elite Capture of Foreign Aid: Evidence from Offshore Bank Accounts (World Bank WPS 9150)
World Bank economists found that aid disbursements to the most aid-dependent countries coincided with jumps in deposits in offshore financial centers, implying leakage of around 7.5 percent.
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The development banks' blacklist.
- 1999 QA-0113World Bank · Database
World Bank Listing of Ineligible Firms and Individuals
Companies and people barred from World Bank-financed contracts for fraud, corruption or collusion, with dates, grounds and cross-debarments by other development banks.
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Who gets EU budget money.
- 2007 QA-0105EC · Database
EU Financial Transparency System
The European Commission's searchable register of who receives money from the directly managed EU budget: contractors, NGOs, universities, companies, with amounts and programme.
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Who is frozen out of the EU financial system.
- 2004 QA-0106EC · Dataset
Consolidated list of persons, groups and entities subject to EU financial sanctions
The machine-readable master list of everyone under EU asset freezes, with legal basis, aliases and identifiers.
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Small but telling: what ministers were given.
- 2026 QA-0111NI Executive · Dataset
Ministers' Gifts and Hospitality, January to June 2026 (Northern Ireland)
A register of gifts and hospitality offered to and accepted by Northern Ireland Executive ministers, published as open data.
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